Finding out true feelings
by fiction-goddes
Summary: Draco and Hermione have always hated eachother for as long as they can remember, but what happens if they find out that their feelings aren't really hate, but some sort of love they cannot place?
1. Finding out true feelings

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of his friends and foes, I just borrow them from time to time, let them ravish eachother silly and then let them return to their respective owner completely satisfied!

Author of the story: Fiction Goddes

Sidenotes: This is a story about Hermione and Draco, if you are not into this combination as a couple, please stay away from this story.

Anyways, enjoy!

Yours truly,

Fiction Goddes, also known as Phoebe Phoenixar

It was the beginning of the seventh year at Hogwarts, Hermione was really looking forward to it, the new lessons should be brilliant. Of course, she did most of the learning and paying attention in class for her parents who were very intend for her to get high grades, but over all the years, she has noticed this is quite a pleasant way to live. Her dearest friends, Ron and Harry, always looked up to her, even though she knew they'd never admit that.

Of course, there was also a downside to this all, some people looked at her as if she was going crazy, always with her nose in the books, especially that friggin' Malfoy scum, she couldn't stand him and his hate for Muggleborns, yes, she had none magic parents, but she's a very talented witch, isn't she? There's no need for him to remind her to the fact that she's the first in their family with magical qualities.

To be honest, this was the only thing she wasn't looking forward to, having to face those icy silver/blue eyes again, but this is her last year, with any luck, she'd never had to see his face again after this year!

Strangly enough, this didn't make her feel completely happy, at least, not as happy as she thought it'd make her feel, for some reason, whenever she looked into his eyes, she felt something flutter inside her stomach and she always wished there'd come something else out of his mouth than painful words, the next moment her hopes get shattered if he lets out another sharp toned sentence about Mudbloods, of course, being pointed in her direction.

'Not anymore, I won't let him get to me anymore! I'm Head Girl, I'm sure Dumbledore didn't give me that position only because I look good... he must know that I'm well capable of standing up for myself.' She thinks, she walks towards the big doors of Hogwarts, taking a deep breath and smelling the familiar scent of the place where she pleasantly spend 6 years already, this year was, beyond doubt, going to be the best year so far.

She looks at her friends who are walking besides her, Ron and Harry, accompanied by Ron's little sister, Ginny and the strange girl, Luna Lovegood. Hermione always saw her as a strange girl, until the 6th year, when she got to know her better and they could eventually get along quite well, especially after their encounter with Voldemort last year.

They walk to the Great Hall, followed by a great deal of students along with them.

"Had a nice vacation?" Ron asks her when they sit down at their usual place at the Gryffindor table.

Hermione nods. "Yeah, quite nice, relaxing at the beach, a little house away from civilication so I could practice my spells and do my homework!" she says with a smile.

Ron rolls his eyes. "Only you can find pleasure in making homework during the summer vacation..." he states out.

Hermione is wise enough to ignore this and she turns towards Harry. "How about you? Have the Dursley's been treating you any different after the visit of the gang?" she asks, referring to the Order of the Phoenix who stepped up to the Dursley's telling them that they should treat Harry with more respect if they didn't want to suffer under the consequenses.

Harry grins a little and murmers something like "Extremely polite" then he looks past her and gis gaze turns more hostile. Hermione looks over her shoulder and notices Draco looking at them with an immens ammount of hate in his eyes. Of course, Hermione can imagine that, Harry had told the whole world about his father's binds with Voldemort, there's no way that he'll ever treat them nicely after this, she mentally braces herself for the schoolyear that's now started, she knows Draco will not let them go off so easily and they may even end up getting cursed or something.

"Let him be, Harry." She says, turning him around, leaving the people at the Slytherin table laughing.

"I can't stand the bastard, he thinks he's the king of the world, even though he knows his family has lost against an underaged wizard..." Harry points out.

Ron murmers a reply and Hermione only nods. She looks over her shoulder to see what Draco's up to and she catches a brief glare of Draco that, from what she thought, wasn't completely hateful, but the next moment, that glare is gone and he turns around again.

She shakes her head, she must have been mistaken, there's no way Draco would ever look at her in that way.

'Why not?' she questions herself. 'I'm just a human, like him...' _He detests Muggleborns_ an annoying little voice in her head says. Hermione sighs, that's true, but for a moment, she really felt like he appreciated her, even in the slightest way.

"Something the matter, Herm?" Ron asks.

"No, no not at all!" Hermione answers with a smile.

"Don't let that snake get to you, Hermione, he's just trying to get to you." Harry tells her.

Hermione nods, yes, Harry was right, though she wasn't completely certain in what way Draco was trying to get to her.

From the moment Hermione turned around to see what Harry was looking at, Draco felt something flutter inside his stomach, it's the feeling he's been trying to supress for years already, he refuses to believe that he actually has feelings for a Mudblood, Granger out of all the people, no, that just can't be true, his heart must be playing tricks on his mind.

Draco watches Hermione as she turns Harry back towards the Gryffindor table, there was some kind of understanding in her eyes, like she knew why he was even more hateful towards them as other times, of course she knows, she's the one that started it all, she's the one that let Potter talk to the world telling everyone about his father's work. Without realizing it, he's still staring at Hermione, his eyes go over her body, down her curly brown hair, her waist doesn't look good in that rope, but still, he kind of thinks she looks nice, not hot, just nice, like a Gryffindor girl should look like, cute and innocent.

As if she knew Draco was looking at her, she turns around, looking straight into Draco's eyes, first with disgust, but in an instant, her look becomes more amazed. At that moment Draco realizes what he's doing and he turns away, regaining his former features, the pride of Slytherin, hating everything that he should hate. 'Except Granger maybe...' he thinks. _Snap out of it Malfoy, you know who you are and what she is. _Draco has become quite used to the little voice already, every time he thought something nice about the Mudblood, this voice brought him back to reality, he's a Malfoy, he's supposed to hate Mudbloods, and he does, oh he does, he hates them with all his heart, poluting the school with their pressence, how could he even think of Granger in that way? Being friends with everything he hates: that friggin' Muggle lover Weaselbee and Saint Potter, he downright disgusts them, he'd curse them if he had a chance.

Hermione listens to the Sorting Hat when it sings it's song, again, impressing on not letting the differences between the houses get to them and that they should be united in these dark times.

She listens to Ron and Harry who, again express their hate for Slytherin and say that they will never, ever be able to get along with them.

She however, thinks there's a slight sense to it all, if they could get along with Slytherin, maybe Malfoy wouldn't treat them like shit anymore, maybe she'd get to know him better and understand his motives better. Of course, she doesn't say this out loud, she doesn't want the guys to ignore her for the rest of the year.

Dumbledore tells the students to have a nice dinner and then the tables are flooded with food.

Ron and Harry immediately start to eat, Hermione still remains mesmorized.

Dinner's almost over when she decides to grab a bite, greatful that the guys were too busy with their own food to notice that Hermione hasn't even started eating yet.

The evening goes by in quite a blur, she listens to Dumbledore having a speech to first the new students about the Forbidden Forest and then to all to have a nice school year.

She leads the First Years to the Gryffindor common room, telling them the password and entering the room.

For some strange reason she can't stop thinking of Draco. Has he ever given her such a look before? Yes, now she thinks of it, in their fifth year when all the Head Boys and Girls were supposed to assemble on the Hogwarts train, he gave her quite an interested look, not hateful, not calculating, just an interested look, of course, jsut for a few seconds before angrily looking the other way. Thinking back more intentionally, she has gotten looks like that more often, or even just softer looks while he was opposing her, just for a second before his eyes would turn icy cold again.

She always moved this away as if it never happened, she always thought it was just her imagination, but this wasn't her imagination, was it? It happened too often for it to be untrue, or did she just want to get along with Draco so much that she was seeing things that weren't there? Yes, she thought to herself, that's gotta be it, there's no way he'd ever get to see me in any other way than just a stupid other Mudblood. Startled to notice that's she's feeling quite disappointed about this.

In his own private dorm in the Slytherin Dungeons, Draco thinks back at what he did, what he did this night and all these other years, at night, his hate for Muggles certainly became less, his mind was tired and he couldn't think clearly, as so he said to himself. His father always told him that Muggles were discusting creatures and that it's a discrase to be a Mudblood, but was that really the case? When he was younger, he took in his ideas for his own, but now he was getting older, he started thinking for himself and he thought that Granger might not even be as bad as he thought she was, no matter what his house mates would say of it.

He thought of Hermione, how her eyes usually sparkle when she talks about something she's interested in, homework most of the time, or that House-Elf thing she's so busy with, it makes him smile, she's so driven when it comes to things like that. He likes it quite a bit, of course he'd never even think of telling anyone else about those thoughts, and it was only at night when he allowed those thoughts to be there.

He takes off his ropes and the rest of his school clothes and slips into his silky green pyjama's, before sliding into his comfortable, soft bed, drifting off into sleep before his eyes were even completely shut.

Well people, that's it for today, can't concentrate long enough to make a longer story, but I will promise you that I'll write a chapter a day alright?

**Please leave a review, since this is my very first Harry Potter fanfic, I'm really interested about what you think of it.**

** Phoebe Phoenixar.**


	2. stronger feelings

**Stronger feelings**

This is part two of my story, hope you like it More intention towards sex, so if you have something against that, please don't read this! 

_Hermione runs over the fields, laughing happily and looking back over her shoulder._

"_Come on, catch me!" she says playfully while she keeps running, her long hair flies behind her while she keeps running._

_Draco laughs as well, running after her and trying to catch her._

_Silken leaves fall from the sky, making the setting complete. Draco looks at her long white dress, it fits perfectly around her body, but still manages to make her look perfectly innocent._

_Draco's getting closer, Hermione looks over her shoulder to see if he's still there._

_Draco can see every change of color in her eyes now._

_Hermione turns around while still continuing to run, she opens her arms for him and Draco runs into them, falling backwards into the grass._

_It's like the whole world is spinning, it's all about them, they smile at eachother while they look straight into eachothers eyes, Hermione's face becomes closer and their lips meet eachother._

Draco wakes of with a soft scream, sitting up straight in his bed. 'It was just a dream... just a dream...' he tells himself. He touches his lips, as though he's trying to feel the pressence of Hermione's.

Startled to find something rather hard between his legs, Draco finds it time to take a icy cold shower, there's no way he's going to fall for this Mudblood, let alone touch himself over it.

He stands up, looking at the mirror in his private dorm, he sure is happy that the dorm is private right about now, what if he accidentally said something in his sleep? He shudders at the thought of what others would say about that. _'Dreaming about a Mudblood? You're a nasty blood traitor!' _they would say. Draco can't help but smile at that. Yes, he'd be a filthy blood traitor alright, but at least he'd be with her. He shakes his head to get that thought out, he doesn't know where it came from, but he wants them out of his head. Quickly grabbing a towl, he starts heading for the Head Boys showers.

Hermione sits in the Great Hall, still not fully awake, she had a strange dream last night, she was running around in a grassfield, wearing nothing but a white dress while Draco was trying to catch her.

It scared her, she'd dreamed about Draco before, yes, but never in this way. Usually it were nightmares, or dreams in which she thought of sickening ways to kill him. This was different, they had kissed!

She slightly notices the guys talking to her, but she can't make out the words.

"...mione... Hermione!" the words become more clear. She looks up at them, making a confirmation sound. (hhm?)

"What's wrong with you today? Is something the matter?" Harry asks.

Hermione shakes her head, surely she's not going to tell them about her dream. "No, nothing's wrong..." she assures them. "I was just thinking about today's classes, or did you forget we have 2 hours of potion class today?"

Harry and Ron grown nearly painfilled at that thought and Ron knocks with his head on the table.

"You had to remind us to that huh?" Harry asks, out of all the classes they can have, Potions is his least favorite, and out of all the teachers they could have, their Potions master, Snape would be the one he hates the most.

Hermione doesn't answer, but she laughs silently.

The door to the Great Hall opens and Draco walks in, seemingly in a terrible mood, walking over to the Slytherin table without even the usual deathglare in the Gryffindor table's direction.

'What's the matter with him?' she wonders, she keeps staring at the door, trying not to show that she was looking at the blond Slytherin.

"How much more time do we have before class?" Ron now wonders.

Harry looks at his watch. "About 30 minutes..." he says, knowing that they'll have 'Hystory of Magic' the first 2 hours makes them even more desperate to go straight to bed again. Not that it'd make much difference, they never really pay attention in that class anyway.

"Then we'd better go back to the common room to get our bags, we don't want to be late now!" Hermione says immediately, she wants to get away from the man she dreamed about as fast as possible, before she does something stupid. 'Like what?' she wonders, 'What stupid things would I do? Run over to kiss him? No way. He's still Draco Malfoy and I still hate him!' she thinks though it feels like she's more trying to reassure herself of that.

The guys nod and stand up, walking out of the Great Hall, followed suit by Hermione who dares to take one glare towards the Slytherin table, seeing her glare becoming welcomed by Draco, annoyed to find a blush creeping up her face, she walks faster, catching up with the guys. Trying not to think of the guy who certainly didn't give her a hating glare this time.

When Draco finally enters the Great Hall, after taking a 45 minute shower, he immediately gets greeted by Hermione's eyes, which look at him with a mix of emberrasment and fear, that sure is a look he's never seen before. Parts of his dream fly through his mind and he is wise enough not to look back at her, instead walking over to the Slytherin table, thinking if he's made a mistake, he usually gives them a straight deathglare in the morning, but now he just walks by without saying anything.

What's wrong with him? These feelings have been here all these years, but he's always been able to hide them, so why can't he do that anymore? What has changed so much that he's losing his cold appearence?

He watches as the Dream Team stands up, the guys in the front. Weaselbee and Saint Potter, Draco thinks disgusted, what he wouldn't give to be in their place now. He shakes his head and looks at the trio leaving the hall, suddenly Hermione looks back over her shoulder, startled to notice that, Draco doesn't have time to look angry, he sees Hermione's face become red and she quickly runs away.

'What the fuck was that?' he wonders, eyes wide open as he now stares at the door instead of the girl. 'She really does look nice...' she thinks, hating himself for those thoughts and wanting to slam his hand onto the table, pinning it into a fork instead, he lets out a startled scream, feeling a stinging pain in his hand and looking down, there are 4 bleeding dots in his hand. It doesn't matter, it's getting his thoughts of that filthy Mudblood Granger, he stands up, walking through the hall towards the hospital wing, he needs something for around his hand. 'And something to fix this bug in my head as well... error, error, terminal stadium!' he thinks with a dark grin. Does he even still care about the Mudblood thing? He growls in frustration, he has to get the girl out of his mind, how did he do that in the past? He can't even remember it right now. He's entered the hospital wing and walks up to madam Pomfrey, not talking, just showing his hand, not saying how much it friggin' hurts or making it look worse than it is, just standing there with a stupid look on his face.

"We'll look at that right away Mr. Malfoy, what did you do to your hand?" Madam Pomfrey asks.

"Had an encounter with a fork..." Draco says uninterested.

Madam Pomfrey nods and heals his hand so it stops bleeding, then she puts a small piece of bandage around it.

"Are you alright, Mr. Malfoy? You certainly don't act like yourself." She now asks.

Draco gives her an angry look. "How I feel is my bussiness and certainly not yours." He hisses out, after that he runs off. Leaving Pomfrey to think what the hell is wrong with him.

In the corridors, he finds Crabbe and Goyle.

"Come on, we're going to be severely late if we don't hurry." He says, his mates nod foolishly and follow him towards the Slytherin common room

'There's only one good thing about having Crabbe and Goyle by my side...' Draco thinks.

'They're too stupid to ask questions.' He grins at his own thought and walks on.

Entering the classroom, Hermione already knows she won't be able to keep her head to todays lesson, her mind is clouded with other things. And with 'other things' she primairily means Draco. When did her feelings towards him change? When did it all become so severe that she can't stop them anymore? She knows the feelings have been there for a long time, but so far she never gave into them, howcome she can't stop herself now? Even thinking of Draco makes her feel all warm inside already.

She sits down on her usual spot and tries to pay attention.

But as soon as professor Binns starts to talk, she finds out for the first time that his voice is boring and monotone and she soon drifts off into thoughts.

"_... a gift from Draco's father."_

"_You see Weasley, unlike some, my father can afford the best." Draco adds._

"_At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in." Hermione says as a real know it all._

_Draco walks up to her,standing straight up and looking into her eyes with a disgusted look in them. "No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudlblood!" he nearly writes the words in the air, every word cuts through her heart like a knife. 'Mudblood!' she thinks._

Hermione winces at the thought, it still hurts her to think of it, out of all the things she thought he'd say, 'Mudblood' wasn't one of them.

Hermione looks back at him, half in anger, half in pain, Draco keeps staring back at her, for half a second she detects a flicker of compationed in his eyes, before Ron shouts: "You'll pay for that one, Malfoy, eat slugs!"

Hermione suddenly sits up straight and thinks confused: compationed? Since when does he know what that is?

Without being able to stop herself, she looks back over her shoulder, finding Draco holding his wounded hand. 'Wounded? When did that happen?' she wonders.

Draco doesn't seem to notice that she's looking at him, his eyes are glassy and dreamy.

"Hermione, what's wrong?" Harry asks.

Hermione looks back at him, he looks a bit worried. "Ehm... nothing, I thought I heard my name..." she lies.

Ron grins at her. "That might have been professor Binns, he's been calling your name about 10 times already!" he says, pointing at the ghost in front of the class.

And indeed, professor Binns looks at her with great interest.

"Ah, sorry professor." Hermione says with a guilty voice.

But before the teacher van say anything else, the bell rings and class is over. Binns gives her a last interested look and flies off.

Hermione sighs and picks up her schoolbooks, putting them in her bag, noticing that the guy's eyes never leave her alone.

They walk out of the class, seeing Draco still sitting in his bench, Cravve and Goyle standing there with a confused look on their dull faces.

"What's the matter with him?" Ron asks, looking at his most hated class mate.

"Probably thinking of the woman of his dreams..." Harry says with a chuckle.

Hermione becomes pale, 'woman of his dreams?' she thinks, not sure if she hopes that woman is her.

Draco is thinking back of last nights dream, but it's being interfered with thoughts of ealier years, strangly though, he can't remember any bad things, only her looks and some flurries of feelings.

"_Malfoy..." _he hears, 'Hermione...' he can actually here her voice.

"Malfoy!" someone shouts in his ear.

Draco jumps up from his chair, looking at the startled faces of Crabbe and Goyle.

"What were you doing that for?" he shouts back, still not completely recovered from the shock of seeing Crabbe and Goyle instead of Hermione.

"Class is over, we can go." Goyle says.

Draco looks through the classroom, indeed, no one's there anymore, he looks at the place where Hermione sat earlier and he shakes his head. 'What a stupid fool I am...

**Well people, that's it for today, seems like my chapters are getting longer...**

**Please leave a reply, I love replies, no matter good or bad**

**Phoebe Phoenixar**


	3. Truth To Be Told

Part 3, it'll become more serious now, what will Hermione do? What will Draco do? Will they tell eachother about their feelings? Read it and find out!

Phoebe Phoenixar

"What happened to you Hermione? And don't say 'nothing', because I won't buy it!" Harry says, they're on their way to Potions and Hermione hasn't said a word so far.

Hermione stands still and looks at the floor, she can just say it, but lie about a few things, right?

"Well... promise me you won't laugh alright?" she asks.

Harry and Ron, who had walked on, turn around and nod, they walk back to their friend who stands there, feeling completely uneasy.

"What's the matter, Mione?" Ron asks.

"I... I had a dream last night, a really scary one..." Hermione starts, she colors bright red and starts fidgeting.

"What about?" is Ron's next question.

"Draco..." Hermione chokes out.

She watches the guys who try to stop themselves for laughing.

"Yeah, his face turns every dream into a nightmare, but why do you look so absent today?" Harry asks with a slight grin on his face.

Hermione's heart feels like it's 10 sizes too big and presses uncomfortably in her throat.

"Well, because in my dream I was running through a grass field and I called him to catch me..." she tells softly.

She expected Harry and Ron to start laughing now, but the opposite is true, they look at her with startled looks on their faces, nearly frightened.

"Don't tell me you have feelings for that ferret face!" Harry nearly shouts, making a few people in the corridors look around to see what's going on.

"No I don't and can you please keep your voice down, I don't need the whole school to know what I dreamed..." Hermione says, looking at the students and points them in the way they were walking at. They get the hint and walk on.

"Like I said, it was a complete nightmare..." she now says. "Lets just forget about it ok?"

The guys nod and walk towards the dungeons where their least favorite teacher was waiting to metally torture them once more.

They wait in silence, a really uncomfortable silence, to Hermione's liking, she wishes the guys would say something, anything, so she'd know they didn't think she went all crazy.

Snape opens the door to the dungeons and lets them in, the whole class now becomes silent, Hermione knows that it's because of Snape's pressence, but she desperately wants them to talk.

When they've arrived at their usual place in the back of the class, the door to the dungeons opens again and Draco and his companions stumble in.

"Sorry for being late, professor." Draco murmers and takes his seat.

"That's alright, Draco, but next time, try to stick to the schedule!" Snape says, giving his Slytherin pride an appreciating look for showing up.

"Just look at him, stupid idiot, and he truly has Snape on his hand..." Ron whispers.

"Well, Snape ís the head of Slytherin house, you can't expect from him to punish the people under his wings, that'd be like treachory to him..."Hermione whispers back, knowing that Snape always sees the Slytherin as better people than anyone else.

Harry chuckles and nods.

Potions class comes and goes, to slow for the Gryffindors who occasionally get a fowl snear from Snape and of course get the lowest grades in the class.

"Friggin' bastard, my potion looked a lot better than those from the Slytherin's, and I still fail!" Ron says furiously while nearly running back up the stairs.

"Let it be, Ron." Hermione says soothing, as the only Gryffindor who got an 'O' for her potion.

"Easy for you to say..." Ron replies, but he doesn't say anything else about it and Hermione is wise enough not to give him a reason to start shouting at him.

She looks at the ground while thinking that this wasn't even so bad, Snape's pressence stopped her from drifting off into thoughts and Draco wasn't on her mind for 2 hours.

Suddenly she finds her body laying on the ground after bumping into something.

"Watch where you're going, stupid Mudblood!" she hears.

'Crap, Draco!' she thinks, she looks up and indeed she's looking into the angry, cold eyes of Draco Malfoy.

"It's your fault for standing there." Hermione bites back.

"I can go wherever I want, but if you don't look out, I will curse you so bad that you won't even be able to run into me again!" Draco hisses out.

"You wouldn't dare!" Hermione replies, trying to give him an icy deathglare, but failing misserably.

Draco doesn't seem all too convinced either, his face looks like he's angry, but his eyes don't fit the picture. He decides to turn around before he can do anything stupid.

"Filthy Mudblood..." he murmers softly.

Hermione sighs and turns around towards the guys. "I just remembered I forgot a book, I'll see you guys later, ok?" she quickly says, she just can't stand not knowing what's going on and she's planning to find out.

Ron and Harry nod again and walk towards the Great Hall.

Hermione on the other hand, runs up to the Gryffindor Common room to write a letter.

After finishing that, she goes to the Owl tower to send the letter, usually she'd have used Hedwig to send a letter, but today she won't, it'd look a bit strange if Hedwig, Harry's owl, would suddenly land on the Slytherin table to give Harry's biggest enemy a letter.

"Sorry, Hedwig, I won't be using you today." Hermione says when the beautiful white owl flies down from her seat.

Hedwig makes a sad sound and flies off again, Hermione gets the first owl she can find and binds the letter to it. "Go and find Draco for me, ok?" she asks it and a few seconds later, the owl is gone, Hermione watches it circling the sky before she goes down the stairs again.

Draco sits in front of the Slytherin table, shaking from his meeting with the Gryffindor girl.

He doesn't quite understand what he just did, why didn't he just cast a spell on her like he threatened to do? Why did he look at her with a goofy look in his eyes?

Hermione enters the Great Hall, looking a bit pale and confused, Draco wonders why that is.

She sits down and starts talking with the other members of the Dream Team.

Suddenly an owl flies through the window and lands in front of him on the table.

Draco looks at the white piece of paper the owl is carrying.

"Who is it from?" he asks, not as much to the bird as it is to himself, he unleashes the letter and reads it.

'_To Draco,_

_I want a few things cleared out, so just bare with me for a second, why do you act so different to me lately? Has something changed? You seem to act like you don't actually hate me anymore'_

Draco stops reading for a second, he's got a hunge as from who this letter is, he looks at the Gryffindor table, but Hermione doesn't seem to give any signals to him, well except for maybe the fact that she's trying very hard to keep a conversation going.

'If it's the case that you don't hate me (anymore) I can say that feeling is mutual, over the past few years, I've noticed a few kind looks towards me, not cold, not angry, just friendly, or at least, nearly friendly. I know I'm not making much sense right now, but I wanted to ask you, if you feel more for me than what you've shown so far, would you send me a letter back? I promise I won't tell anyone or hate you for it (at least, not really)

_greetings, H.'_

Draco becomes completely white and looks at the Gryffindor table once more, the conversation has stopped and Hermione sits still on the bench, wipping her feet nervously.

'It's gotta be her.' He thinks and he stands up from the table, unsure of what to do. He wants to write something back, but what will happen if he does? Will Granger and up dating him? Will they actually fall in love?

He starts thinking of walking hand in hand, kissing under the moonlight and he finds out that that thought doesn't upset him at all, no, he even likes it. But will he tell her? He can't imagine how many things will change when they'd actually have something together. If his house mates find out, he'll be complete outcast. Not to mention that he'd be acting nice to the whole Dream Team, he can't see himself doing thát.

He walks back to the Slytherin common room, completely in thoughts.

He wants to write a letter back, but at the same time he finds himself holding back that feeling.

Now the schoolday's over and Hermione is back in the Gryffindor tower, she knows Draco won't write back. She hadn't really expected it, she was just fooling herself, how could someone like him have feelings for her?

She looks out the window, it's completely dark already and the first stars are beginning to fill the sky.

The guys are fast asleep already, at least, she thinks they are, she isn't completely sure, she said to them that she'd be making her homework and she'd follow later, but the truth is, she hasn't written down a single thing, or never even opened a book yet.

She stands up and starts pacing through the room. When she can't take it anymore, she just heads out the common room, walking through the now deserted castle. No students are allowed outside their common rooms at this time, but because she's Head Girl, she won't get in trouble.

She passes the lounge and the doors to the Great Hall, without knowing where she's going, she just walks out of the castle, happy to notice that Filch isn't around.

In front of her she finds the lake and she sits down against a tree, looking over the calm water.

She relaxes a little, though thoughts are still going through her mind.

Was she really wrong about the signals she got from Draco? Of course she was wrong, Draco's a Slytherin, she's a Muggleborn.

"What are you doing here?" she suddenly hears. The voice sounds familiar and her heart nearly jumps out of her ribcase.

"Malfoy!" she squeeks and she jumps to her feet.

"Granger..." Draco greets her.

Hermione is now completely startled. Draco who didn't act hateful?

"Got your letter." Draco says, sitting down and asking Hermione to do the same.

Hermione takes a seat next to him, keeping her distance. He started about the letter, would that be a good thing? She intentionally doesn't look at him.

Draco stares at the lake, not sure of what he'll answer. "I... that letter did come from you right?" he first asks.

Hermione gives him a shy nod.

"Alright... I- I think I wanted to say... I don't... completely hate you..." Draco stutters.

Hermione now looks up at him. "I see, may I ask what is it you feel then?"

Draco doesn't answer and shrugges his shoulders. "I'm not sure... I think I... I think I like you..." he whispers.

Hermione's heart is working at a fast pace and her mind is working overtime. She'd been right, he really does like her!

Draco looks at her. "Do you like me too?" he aks.

Hermione stares into his silver/blue eyes and stays silent.

**What will Hermione answer? Will she be honest or will fear stop her from doing so? Read in in the next chapter!**

**Phoebe Phoenixar**


	4. The Answer

Sorry for the late update, since my mom and sis have their vacation at the moment I'm not able to go online that often...

**Anyways, remember last time, I left Hermione with answering Draco's question?**

**I'll let her answer now, and we'll see what happens next.**

Hermione doesn't really know what to answer, she's quite a bit stunned by Draco's straight forward questioning. She looks at the sky, where the stars now get shaded by clouds.

"I... I wouldn't have written that letter if I didn't have certain feelings for you, would I?" she asks back.

Draco smiles a little and scoots closer to his Muggleborn. "I suppose that's true." He says softly. "You know, ever since I first saw you, I've had these feelings already, though at first I didn't know what they were, I'm a Malfoy, I'm not supposed to have feelings towards a Mud... I mean, Muggleborn, right?" he asks. "But after the years went by, I became more aware of these feelings and they became more difficult to supress each time, that's why I became more and more hostile towards you every time I talked to you, to stop my feelings, to tell myself that it's wrong to love you and either way, you wouldn't love me back, as so I thought, I now see that I was wrong..." he looks at Hermione, giving her a smile from which he never thought he'd give her that, warm and friendly.

Hermione blushes a little. "It's quite the same here. I always kind of liked you, but my friends completely hated you, so I told myself to do the same, but every time I saw you I had the slight hope that you'd treat me differently, not cold and angry, but at least a little bit friendly, quite saddening to notice that this never happened. Terrible we have to find out in our last year huh? I mean, we probably will never see eachother again after school." She whispers, giving Draco a sad look.

Draco watches her, her eyes show that she really feels bad about this and he strokes his hand through his blond hair, a bit confused, not knowing what to say. "I suppose... that if we... ehm... well, I mean, if this really works out, there is no reason for us not to see eachother again, right? If we become a real couple, I can come to visit you and you can do the same!" he says with a light and friendly tone.

"I'm not too sure," Hermione answers. "I don't think your parents will ever accept me, and I'm not too sure if I'll ever be able to accept your parents, they're Death Eaters..."

Draco chuckles. "Well, luckily you won't have to date any of them." He jokes.

Hermione laughs, she never knew that Draco could be funny in a non sarcastic way, it makes her feel so much more comfortable, and yes, he's right, she doesn't have to like his parents, she likes Draco and he likes her, that's all there is to know.

"You're right, you really are ok, Draco." She murmers.

Draco nods. "I know... you aren't bad yourself." He says with a faint smile and he tries to kiss Hermione, getting interrupted by very heavy rain. "Great..." he whispers, cursing softly.

"We'd better go inside before we catch a cold." Hermione says, also a bit disappointed.

Draco sighs and gets back up on his feet. "You're right, would be strange if you and I are both sick right? People would think strange things of it, completely incorrect, of course." He jokes and they start running towards the castle.

Hermione enters the Gryffindor common room, completely soaked and freezing cold, she and Draco parted when they reached the Great Hall, not wanting to run into Filch, he'd be sure to tell everyone about their meeting and that's the last thing they want.

"Where did you come from?" she suddenly hears, she looks around, seeing a redhaired girl, she recognizes as Ginny, sitting on one of the comfortable chairs.

"I went for a walk." Hermione says, this isn't a complete lie, since it started out as an innocent walk, she doesn't have to tell the girl she met Draco.

Ginny stands up and walks towards the window. "I see, it's quite bad weather huh? You'd better put those wet robes off before you catch a cold." She says, seemingly buying Hermione's story.

Hermione nods. "Yeah, I'd better do that, and I might go to bed as well, howcome you're up so late by the way?" she now asks, remembering that it's after midnight.

"Couldn't sleep..." Ginny simply says, following Hermione upstairs.

"Same here."Hermione answers.

Draco enters his private room in the Slytherin dungeon, falling backwards on his bed, still wearing his wet clothes, he still smiles a little, he can't imagine what he just did, expressing his love for the Gryffindor Mudblood, why does it make him feel so good? Too bad the stupid rain had to mess things up before he had a chance to kiss her, he wants to know if her lips would feel as good as he'd expect them to be. 'Would they feel like in my dream?' he wonders. He licks his lips, imagining feeling Hermione's there.

His pants become way too tight around his crotch, but instead of ignoring it or taking a clod shower, he decides to do what he never felt possible of doing, unbuttoning his pants, peeling them down together with his underwear and wrapping his fingers around himself, a soft sigh of relief escaping his lips while he starts moving.

Hermione is the last of the Dream Team to enter the common room the next morning, yawning as she says: "Morning guys."

"It's about time too, what took you so long?" Harry asks, knowing that she's usually the first to be up and ready because she doesn't want to be late, not even five minutes late for breakfast. "You look tired, had another nightmare?" he then asks.

"Nightmare?" Ginny asks.

"Nothing serious." Hermione quickly says to Ginny. "And no, I just didn't sleep all too well. Couldn't concentrate on my homework yesterday, so I went for a walk, got suprised by the rain, got back to the common room went to bed and couldn't stop thinking about my homework." She says, she feels bad about lying, but it's always better than saying she met Malfoy yesterday and that she was quite confused after nearly kissing him.

Ron grins. "That's so tipical for you." He states out.

Hermione laughs as well, she knows, that's why she said it, she knew she wouldn't get any questions if she'd say that. "Well, we're goig to be late, come on!" she says, starting to walk towards the exit of the common room.

When they enter the Great Hall in silence, she secretly looks in the direction of the Slytherin table, Draco is talking to his house mates, Crabbe and Goyle, who sit on either side of him, as personal bodyguards, Hermione thinks grinning. He looks a bit different today, nearly relaxed, she notices, before walking towards her own table.

"Well, Transfiguration today, wonder what McGonagall will let us do..." Ron says, trying to start a conversation.

"Dunno, we'll find out soon enough." Harry answers.

Hermione's eyes start to sparkle. "I hope we'll have to summon things like last time, that was a lot of fun!" she says excited.

"Yeah, especially since you were the only one who got it to work, how on earth do you do that? I mean, you can do everything!" Ron says, not really meaning it as a compliment, more sarcastically.

"Just pay attention and put your concentration to the right cause." Hermione says.

Ron nods, acting like he will try to remember that for the next time.

Draco already entered the Great Hall when he notices his girlfriend walking in. He doesn't have time to look at her, because Crabbe says something to him, he didn't hear it, so he has to ask for the repeat of the sentence, something he rarely does.

"I said: was it you who entered the common room so late?" Crabbe asks.

"Oh, yeah, that was me, went for a walk..." Draco quickly says, thinking back. Last night was quite nice, not only did he confess his love for Hermione, he also got rid of the annoying tightness in his pants he always tries so desperately to supress, now he feels wonderful, he looks at the door where Hermione was just a few seconds ago, but she's gone, he looks at the Gryffindor table. Hermione's got her back towards him, but seeing her movements, she can tell that she's feeling quite excited about something, probably today's classes, Draco thinks while grinning slightly.

Yeah I know, another short chapter, can't help it, parents can be a real pain from time to time.

**Well, keep reading, I'll put some updates up soon!**

**Also, please leave a review, I always like reading them!**

**Phoebe Phoenixar.**


	5. Feelings and Possibilities

Chapter 5 – Feelings and possibilities

The days pass and nothing special happens, Hermione and Draco hardly see each other except for the few encounters down the hallways or during class.

Seeing that they had agreed to keep acting hostile towards each other, they still yell at each other whenever they meet. But when they walk away they no part with a little smile towards each other as to show that they don't really mean what they say.

The next visit to Hogsmead is drawing near and Draco is planning to meet with Hermione there.

The biggest problem is that he doesn't know where, when or how he is supposed to ask her.

He can't possibly just walk up to her and ask her if she'd like to go, not when Weaselbe and Saint Potter are around.

He shakes his head while he lies on his bed in his private dorm. He has to think of something to catch her attention, but what can he do?

He rolls on to his stomach and stares at his pillow. Maybe he should just cause a deliberate accidental meeting.

The plans form in his mind, half finished, quickly cast away, this will have to be perfect.

When Hermione walks into the Gryffindor Common room, Ginny is there, waiting for her, with her back against the wall.

"Good evening, Miss Granger." She says, acting like she's a detective on a mission and she walks towards her.

Hermione gives her a strange look. "What are you doing here? Everyone else is fast asleep already." She wants to know, knowing that it's already very late indeed.

Ginny points at the chairs, meaning for them to sit down.

"Why do you go outside every evening?" she immediately asks.

Hermione sits down while her insides coil, the truth is that she went for a walk every evening in the past few days, hoping to find Draco there as well, she asks herself which lie would suit her best this time. It becomes harder every time to think up a lie.

"I am worried about my NEWT exams, they do mean a lot if you plan on becoming something good in the future, you know, so I don't want to mess them up, I am worried that…"

"DON'T LIE TO ME!" Ginny cuts across her. She hits her hands down on one of the many rickety tables that are known to clatter the common room.

Hermione is shocked by this sudden outburst of anger.

Ginny gives her a foul look. "I saw you that evening, you were together with that Malfoy scum, at the lake." She tells her without making excuses.

Hermione's face turns as white as a sheet, she got caught, she doesn't know how she can save her ass this time.

"Yeah, he was there, I admit, he tried to curse me, but I stopped him, then it started to rain and I went back to the common room." She quickly says, maybe a bit too fast, because Ginny's eyes seem to narrow. "It is possible that you are speaking the truth, I couldn't see everything that has happened down there, it was dark, but in that case, I'd like you to make a story out of this as well." She leans back again and thinks about how she will say the following sentence.

"You two are always fighting, you still look like you hate each other as much as before, but I've been watching you lately, every time, after a fight, you give each other a brief look and a quick smile."

Hermione's insides seem to be making an attempt to flee her body as fear takes her over, of course she never expected it to be a secret for eternity, she wouldn't have wanted that either, but having to tell it this way is… kindly said, uncomfortable.

"He smiles?" she decides to say. "I know that I smile whenever I walk away from him, I'm always quite glad to make it away from him without getting cursed and with a new opportunity to humiliate him, but I wouldn't really see why he would do the same, and I most definitely don't know why he would be looking at me while he's doing that."

She wishes with whole her heart that Ginny will buy this story, that she'll just stand up and wish her a good night.

Ginny sighs. "Hermione, if you two are together, that worse enough, but you won't make it better by lying about it, you'll only make more enemies that way." She states out, making sure it becomes very clear to Hermione that she'll have to stop lying.

Hermione stands up from the chair and walks towards the staircase. "I'm not lying to anyone, there's nothing between me and Draco and there never will be. Good night."

After that she walks upstairs, her legs shaking like jelly pudding.

Ginny stays in her seat for a little while longer, thinking about what just happened, after this conversation she is almost completely convinced that Hermione and Malfoy are involved with each other, else Hermione would've gotten angry, or she would've reacted like it's the most horrible thing in the world to be involved with that ferret face.

Hermione falls down on her bed in her own private dorm, shaking from head to toe and not knowing what she should do, she has to keep it silent, Ginny is right, people will only hate her once they find out the truth. No Gryffindor wants to hang out with someone who has a relationship with a Slytherin.

Yet she still can't get herself to think about breaking up with Draco, she'd rather keep it secret until the end of the year.

The thought is nearly unbearable and she has to suppress her tears. Lying to her friends for a whole year, only to keep a relationship secret…

The next day, Draco is up early in order to get everything ready for his request for Hermione. He is writing a note, asking her in that note.

When he's finished he goes downstairs, walking out of the common room without looking back even once, only to find out he forgot to put on his shoes and to take his bag.

He takes a deep breath and tries to remember if he's forgotten anything else, he can't think of anything, so he decides to leave once more.

Their first lesson is Herbology, there's got to be a big enough opportunity to bring his plan in to action there.

Once he enters the Great Hall, he notices Hermione, she looks a bit depressed, as if something's bothering her. He'll ask her about it once they have a chance to meet each other in private, for now, they'll just have to pretend a little longer that they are enemies.

He walks up to his common room table and starts to doubt his plan once more, if it doesn't work he'll have a problem, everyone will know about his intentions then.

So what? He asks himself, what does it really matter that people will find out?

In his heart he knows that he will never make friends again within Slytherin if even one person finds out that he's involved with a Mudblood. Potter and Weasley would hate him even more than they already do, but that's beside the point, it doesn't really matter to him how much those two hate him, the feeling is completely mutual anyway.

He'll just have to see to it that it succeeds. There is no other possibility he can think of to ask her out, so he'll just have to take a chance.

When everyone stands up and leaves the Great Hall, he looks around in great surprise, he hadn't got a clue that it was time for the lessons already, his breakfast is still untouched.

With a disappointed groan he stands up and walks along with the rest of his class to the Herbology lesson, his eyes fixed on the bushy curls that is Hermione's hair. When is he supposed to bring this plan into action? Now, during or after the lesson?

He picks up speed and gains on his class, he's only right behind the Gryffindors now, who are very busy talking to each other.

He catches a few words about homework and the word Hogsmead falls a couple of times as well, he feels a strange sensation in his stomach, as if he's nervous.

He grins at himself, he never really expected this to be possible, he, nervous because he's about to ask a girl if she wants to accompany him to Hogsmead. But then again, he never expected to fall in love with a Gryffindor Mudblood either, and even less that he would actually dare to ask her the big question, so being nervous is probably the least worse of the three.

He sighs and decides to wait until after the lesson, hoping that there won't be as many spectators at that time. He drops his walking speed again and goes looking for Crabbe and Goyle.

The Herbology lesson comes and goes, Hermione tries with all her might to stay focused, but her thoughts can't seem to concentrate long enough. Right before the lesson it seemed as if Draco was walking right behind him, she could hear him breath and smell the fresh scent of the after shave that was so typical for him. She is partially grateful that he didn't decide to talk to her she wouldn't have known what to say if there would be another small quarrel between them, but silently, in the back of her head, she had hoped he would look at her again, so she could catch his small, quick smile again.

Thinking about that, she feels the same downing realization of being caught again.

Ginny had found out, Ginny is in direct contact with Harry and Ron, if she would tell Harry or Ron, her life was no longer certain, or at least, their friendship would threaten to break.

Of course there is still a chance that Ginny believes her quickly thought up story, but she figures that chance is minimal, she truly can't imagine that Ginny, who's actually pretty smart, especially when it's about guys, would believe a story that is so poorly made up like the story she had told the evening before.

She can recall the mistakes she has made in her mind, she acted calmly, if someone in he past would have asked if she was involved with Draco, she would've felt instantaneously nauseated, or else she would've looked at them as if they came from a different planet. At least she would never have reacted as if it's completely not a shame to fall in love with a Slytherin, Draco Malfoy of all people.

She tries to concentrate in her plant, which smells badly and tries to eat her hand whenever she tries to draw near. She tries to look to her right, where Neville doesn't seem to have any trouble with his plant at all, she tries to mimic his actions, with as a result that she almost loses a finger.

She looks at her bleeding hand and gives a small yell of pain, Harry and Ron are immediately at her side to look at the wound.

"Don't worry, it's not poisonous, but if I were you I'd go to professor Sprout to have her look at it, just in case." Harry suggests with a concerned expression on his face. Whether he's concerned about her wound of her lack of attention Hermione doesn't know, but she gives a quick nod and walks over to professor Sprout.

When she has left the table she dares to shoot a glare in Draco's direction. He shortly looks back in her direction, with a worried look on his face, but them quickly bows over his own plant again, looking slightly lost in thoughts.

Hermione grins a little at this, it's not that strange, of course he wouldn't like getting injured either.

As soon as professor Sprout is ready with treating Hermione's wound and has put a disinfecting ointment on it, the bell rings and the students are free to leave the greenhouse.

Professor Sprout is the first to leave the greenhouse, with a word of caution in the direction of Hermione.

With her eyes fixed on the half healed wound on her hand, Hermione waits for Ron and Harry, who are still busy packing their stuff.

She knows it's no use walking all the way back, the boys will take her bag wit them.

Still looking at her hand, she walks a few steps towards the end of the greenhouse, she needs some fresh air, the smell of the plants is getting to her.

Not a moment later she feels something hitting her and she nearly falls to her side. She looks up and stares straight into Draco's eyes.

She immediately goes blank as a sheet and doesn't have a clue about what to say.

The students that were walking past her become curious and decide to stay and see what's going to happen next.

"Watch where you're going, Mudblood." Draco hisses, his tone as evil and cold as ever, he grabs Hermione by her collar.

Hermione wants to reply, but at the exact moment Draco grabs her, she feels something sliding underneath her shirt which feels a lot like a piece of parchment.

She pulls away from him and gives him an angry glare. "Why would I have to be more careful, Malfoy, you saw me walking there, you could've easily waited for me to have left." She says, trying to stay calm.

Draco puts up a sarcastic smile. "You still don't know who you are talking to, do you, Granger. Why would I take the time to wait until you have cleared the area? I'm Draco Malfoy, I wait for no one. You'll just have to get out of the way when I go past you." He hisses. "What a nice wound have you got there, by the way, couldn't that plant have bitten you a little longer? It would've been nice to see a few finger being ripped from your hand."

Hermione gives Draco a death glare. He had made his point already, couldn't he just walk away? She knows it's all just fake, but he doesn't have to make it so hard for her.

"At least I managed to get a full bucket of roots, Malfoy. How much did you manage to extract? Three? Maybe four?" Hermione returns the question and she tries to walk past him, but Draco is quick to step in her way and he draws his wand.

Hermione is quick to draw hers and presses it against Draco's throat. "I know you don't like smart talk, Malfoy, that's why you walk around with idiots like Crabbe and Goyle, they probably hardly even know how to spell their own name. But if you ever talk to me again in such a demeaning way, I will personally make sure you won't even remember how to pick up a quill, let alone that you'll know how to write your name with it, now get the hell out of my sight, Malfoy." She says in a low, whispering tone, for a moment there seems to be a flicker of fear in Malfoy's eyes, he pushes Hermione away and runs away without looking back.

Hermione puts her wand back and strokes her hair back. Then finally Ron and Harry decide to join her.

"Blimey, are you alright, Hermione?" Ron asks, casting angry glares at everyone who stayed to watch.

Hermione nods, the parchment that is currently resting against her stomach makes her both curious and unsure.

She's desperate to look at what she has just received, but she's unsure about how to get away from the boys at this point without worrying them even further, the first thing she needs to take care of is hiding it somewhere else, before it falls out of her clothes and the guys pick it up and then they'll probably have an even better reason to be worried, especially if the parchment indicates that it's from Draco.

"I'm alright." She says, making her point more clear. "Just another action from Malfoy to make me look bad because I got injured. But Sprout told me I had to keep this wound under cold water for a while, so I'll visit the toilet for a moment, alright?" The lie came to her fast, without needing to think about it and she walks away, leaving the boys behind to think about what really happened.

Once she has entered the first girls bathroom she could find, she takes a grab for the letter in her shirt, knowing she won't be able to reach it this way. She pulls off her shirt and the parchment hits the ground, she quickly picks it up in case someone enters and she starts to read the letter.

Hey Hermione

This weekend there will be a trip to Hogsmeade, as you know.

I'll be going there, and I think you'll be going there as well, so I kinda wondered if we could somehow meet there.

I know it's probably harder in your case, seeing that you've got Potter and Weasley tagging along all the time, but I would like it a lot if we could see each other again.

If you think that there's someone from your dorm you can trust with our secret and thinks that he or she can help you get to me, then I suppose it would be alright if you asked someone for help.

If you really don't see a way to meet me there, or might you not feel like it, I hope to receive a message back from you, although that might as well be just as hard as meeting each other in Hogsmeade.

Without a reply I'll be waiting for you around two o'clock in the Hog's Head.

Draco.


	6. Preperations

Chapter 6 – preperations

Hermione can't help but thinking about the letter she got from Draco, she safely put it away in her room and went back to the lessons, but she can't help but feel that she has actually learned nothing at all today, she really feels strongly about that, because everything the teachers said was completely without her knowledge of it.

How should she respond to the letter? If she says yes, they'll meet each other in Hogsmead and then it would be even harder to keep their relation a secret.

If the truth finds it's way out, this will, without doubt, become her most horrible year at Hogwarts ever.

She sits in the Gryffindor common room, with her head in her hands and pretends to be making her homework, while in fact, she hasn't read a word of it.

Draco's idea is nice, and it's not as if she hadn't thought of it herself, but it just seemed impossible to her. It still seems impossible to her, but now, she is forced to make a decision.

Of course, she can go and stay at the Hog's Head all day, but then she'll need to get rid of Harry and Ron first. How she'll be able to pull that off, she doesn't have a clue.

She'll have to tell someone about their relationship, but who? Everyone would hate her for telling the truth.

The solution seems easy enough, if there is someone she could possibly tell, it would be Ginny, seeing she already thinks that the two of them are involved, but what would her reaction be if she found out that she's been lied to?

She strokes her hair back, making it look even more tangled than ever.

"Is something wrong, Hermione?" she suddenly hears and she looks up, straight into the eyes of Ginny, who apparently has taken a seat opposite her. She gives her an intrigued look.

Hermione takes her time to calculate the situation and stares back at Ginny.

"Actually…"she starts, swallowing hard and looking her straight into her eyes. "I do have a bit of a problem and… I was kind of hoping that you would be able to help me out." She takes a deep breath and stares from Ginny, to her book and then she looks at the guys who are chatting across the fireplace.

Ginny draws nearer to her. "Is this about guys?" she asks with a little smirk.

Hermione shrug's her shoulders and nods, a small blush finds it's way on to her face.

The next moment she gets pulled out of the common room by her elbow and all the way up the to seventh floor where they find a secluded space away from everyone else.

"So, will I finally be able to find out the truth which I already know all about?" Ginny asks her, her tone is slightly humoristic as well as accusing.

Hermione doesn't answer right away and stares at the ground, her arms firmly wrapped around herself, as if she's trying to protect herself against an upcoming outburst of anger.

"How long have you been hanging out with Draco already?" Ginny asks.

Hermione shakes her head. "Not really all that long yet. He's been acting strange towards me for several years already, I thought it was time to finally find out what the hell was going on…" a few seconds later, or so it seemed, she had told the whole story, she would've thought that Ginny would become angry, but to her outright amazement, she starts to laugh.

"And so that brought you together. I do have to admit I never saw that coming, but if you're absolutely sure about your feelings for that ferret and that he's not merely using you to make a disgrace out of Gryffindor, I can always try to help you find a solution for your problem. At least… if you tell me what that problem is." Ginny says, shrugging her shoulders.

Hermione looks at her and wonders why she hasn't been judged about what she has just admitted.

"I don't think Draco is doing this to make a disgrace out of Gryffindor. If he did, it would be really stupid because his own reputation would be ruined as well as soon as someone sees him with me. And if that was his only reason for hanging out with me, I don't see why we would've gone through all that trouble just to keep it all safe." She says, thinking fast.

"But anyway, the problem is that I received a letter today which says that he wants to meet with me in the Hog's Head during the upcoming trip to Hogsmead."

Now Ginny is absolutely roaring with laughter. "Yes, I can see how that might be a bit of a problem, how would you tell that to Harry and Ron without telling the truth?" she says, trying to catch her breath.

Hermione sags against the wall, sitting down and putting her arms around her knees. "That's exactly where I need your help with…" she says softly.

Ginny takes place beside her and looks at her. "Any ideas?" she asks, thinking that Hermione will have an idea, because she's pretty good at making up stories anyway.

Hermione nods. "If you would come to pick me up around a quarter to two, I'll make sure I'll be in front of Zonko's at that time, then I can tell the guys I arranged to meet with you. Then we can go to the Hog's Head together and wait for Draco." She explains.

Ginny seems to find this a tiny bit strange. "You want me to stay with you while you wait for Draco? Wasn't this supposed to be a secret to everyone?" she asks.

Hermione shakes her head and explains that she was allowed to tell someone about their relation if that would allow her to meet with him.

Ginny decides to agree with the plan and they head back to the common room, Hermione only hopes that the grin on Ginny's face will have left by the time they reach it.

Draco sits in his private room in the Slytherin common room and looks at the picture of Hermione he has secretly taken earlier today.

In the picture she looks a bit vacant during the Defence Against the Dark Arts class, and while it's nothing like her to wear that expression, the result in the picture is nothing less than stunning.

It looks as if she is daydreaming, his fantasy allows him to think that he is the subject of her thoughts.

He keeps staring at the picture while he hopes that Hermione will accept his offer to accompany him to Hogsmead, in some way, he hopes he will not receive any letters anymore in the couple of days, not from anyone, in any way, in case one of them comes from Hermione.

But what if she can't come and also has no means of telling him this? Then he'll be waiting there for nothing.

He shrug's his shoulders and thinks that if that is the case, he'll just leave again. Of course it's also well possible that Hermione doesn't see a chance of meeting him there. It could indeed be quite a bit of a challenge seeing that she's always together with the other two guys.

He looks outside through his window, where he can see the slightest patch of grass, seeing that the Slytherin dungeons are located beneath the earth. He can see a few small snowflakes falling on the otherwise green grass.

He smiles, snow would, of course, make the mood complete.

In his head he pictures himself and Hermione walking through the streets of Hogsmead, hand in hand, smiling at each other, as if all that matters in the world are just the two of them.

Still smiling, he falls asleep, where Slytherins disturb his peaceful dreams, his dreams are filled with pictures of Hogsmead with Hermione, where they get chased by magically controlled snowballs and where Slytherin and Gryffindor students run after them and try to curse them, yelling nasty things and becoming ever more violent.

Hermione sits straight up with a jolt and stares out of the window, it is after midnight, the stars are covered by dark clouds, from which bright white snowflakes now fall without hesitation.

It is the third night after she got the letter from Draco and she hasn't slept well ever since. Nightmares about how this could all end up wrong keep going through her mind, she thinks about it when she's awake and dreams about it at night.

She can hardly face Harry and Ron, knowing she is telling them immense lies and she doesn't like it one bit. Still, she knows she doesn't have many other options, she has to keep this a secret, else her nightmares are only a short way away from becoming reality.

She rubs the sleep from her eyes and is shocked to discover that today is the day, Saturday, the day of the outing.

She feels butterflies taking residence in her stomach and thinks about an afternoon with Draco, slightly overtaken by the fear she now feels inside her.

In the past few days she more than once dared to steal a glance at the Slytherin table and couldn't help but notice that Draco seemed to suffer from the same signs of insomnia as herself. His eyes often closed during breakfast and during the lessons a few more than one teacher had to call out his name in order to get his attention. Once, during Transfiguration, he even got to write lines because he was yelling out in a dream.

This became the hours long taking subject of jokes with the other members of the Gryffindor.

He, too, had dark rings under his eyes and Harry and Ron often joked about it, saying that Hermione and he shouldn't spent so much time making homework, because they started to look more alike by the day.

Ginny had also noticed this, but took the matter a little more seriously than the guys, seeing that she was the only person to know that the two of them were actually involved.

Once she even mentioned, very briefly, that she started to get more respect for 'the little ferret', now he showed hat he was actually trying his very best to keep their relation a secret.

Hermione decides to get out of bed and puts on her pyjama's. A short visit to the prefect's showers will probably do her good, and although she doesn't completely wishes to admit this to herself, she wants to try and look as good as she possibly can for Draco, so she can stun him with a beauty she doesn't show every day.

She smiles to herself, it's somewhat close to hilarious to know that she's trying to impress a guy that already loves her anyway.

She shakes her head and continues her way to the showers. Finding her destination, she bathes herself with her favourite bathing soap. It takes her forever to get the curls out of her hair in front of the mirror, hoping that this will make her look at least slightly more feminine.

After that she walks back to the common room, where she changes into her every day clothes. She hopes it won't look all too much Muggle-like, knowing that Draco is a pureblood wizard and she doesn't want to stress the point that she's from a non-magic family.

When she finally finds herself ready with the preparations, she walks out of her private dorm and into the common room, at this point the sun has risen above the late of the snow filled Hogwarts grounds.

She stares about it for quite some time and thinks about what will happen that day, in her imagination she sees Draco's smiling face and it makes her smile a little in return.

Not much later, Ginny comes walking down the stares, she looks as if she's at least slept a little better than Hermione, although her expression talks about her worries. When she gets sight of Hermione, she starts to smile

"Big day today, hopefully, you'll be able to sleep again tonight." She says with a small grin.

Hermione smiles as well and stares out of the window.

Ginny gets a bottle out of her pocket and hands it to Hermione. "Actually, I was hoping I would run into you here, that's why I took this, it's a really nice perfume, the one who smells it, will immediately smell the things he likes the most." She says with a small wink.

Hermione blushes and takes the bottle. "Ehm… thank you…" she murmurs.

The morning also comes too early in Draco Malfoy's room, the sun has not yet risen, but he's already out of bed. He's trying to find clothes that, for once, won't make him look anywhere near to a pureblood wizard, but somewhat more like a Muggle, so that he won't look like a complete opposite of Hermione, who more no doubt be wearing a Muggle attire.

He sighs while he discards shirt after shirt after trouser and is unable to find anything suitable for the day

With a sarcastic grin on his face he wonders what has changed so much that he's actually starting to worry about what he should wear. A girl never made him dress up like this, but then again, that doesn't say anything, the only girl who ever even tried to go out with him was Pansy Parkinson, and that was, putting it lightly, the worst time of his life.

In the end he just decides on his usual attire of black trousers and a black, turtleneck sweater. If he can't think of something original, he should just wear something that makes it easier for him to be recognised.

He walks up to the mirror and looks at his appearance, he's not completely happy with it, but it'll have to do.

His hair is still a complete mess on top of his head, he tries to comb it, but comes to realise it's probably better to wash it first.

In the end his hair took quite some more time than he initially expected, and once every single strand of hair is neatly in place, he takes some time to look at the rest of his face, no pimples or anything of that sort, of course not, he's never had them before, so why would he get them on this exact day? Disaster scenario's have been making it's way into his head for quite some time already, but today, they make him laugh. Why would he try to look perfect? You can say a lot about Hermione, but she doesn't have a perfect appearance, with her slightly too large teeth and hair that looks like a birds nest that has fallen apart by a storm.

He immediately shakes those thoughts off him, even with all those things, Hermione isn't a bad looking girl, even some guys from his dorm agree on this.

He looks at the mirror again and magically removes the hair on his chin and upper lip, whatever minimal hair growth there is. He does this every day, even though he has nothing that can even come close to a beard or a moustache.

With a bit of his favourite after shave he decides it's time to leave his room and go to the others.

The big day in which he can finally speak with Hermione again is finally there and although his heart is filled with fear, just by thinking about what will happen if the Slytherin will find out, this feeling gets overthrown by happiness.


	7. Hogsmead

Hermione's shoes make soft noises as she walks through the snow, together with Ron and Harry, on her way to Hogsmead.

The whole time she keeps looking around her to make sure no one is capable of telling that she's waiting for one special moment.

"Are you wearing perfume today?" Ron suddenly asks when they pass the Three Broomsticks.

There's a large group of students accumulated in front of the little store, all shaking off the cold when they walk inside and Hermione checks them out as to delay the answer.

Then she slowly nods. "Yes, Ginny gave me this perfume so that I could see if I liked it, she says it's a big hit." She quickly forms up the story, it's not a complete lie, but sadly enough it's not the whole truth either.

Ron nods. "That might be true, it smells really good indeed." He says with a smile.

Hermione inclines her head slightly to accept the compliment. They decide to go for a drink at the Three Broomsticks, where it's nice and warm and where groups of students try to kick each other out of their favourite spot in front of the fireplace.

Ron gives Madame Rosmerta a slightly too seductive glare and Hermione starts to laugh, before she drags him off.

When the clock strikes one, Hermione decides it's time to check out a few more stores, knowing that she'll only have about forty-five minutes left before her meeting with Ginny.

They decide to enter as much stores as they possibly can, in order to stay warm.

In Hermione's opinion, time goes by way too slow, she keeps looking at the immense church clock, but every time she does so, the time seems to go ten times as slow.

When they enter the Hogsmead Quill shop, she gets temporarily distracted from the time when she looks at her favourite object in the store. She's wanted this quill for quite some time already, it's a model that is somewhat larger than a normal quill, indebt with very small diamonds, which is said to write in the colour of your feelings. Every time she watches the feather, she can't help but wonder what colour the quill would write this time.

She figures that at this exact moment the colours would be either orange, which, according to the leaflet lying besides it, stands for fear, or pink, the colour of love.

She grins shakily when she thinks of the contradiction in these colours. Love isn't supposed to go marred with fear. Not even such a messed up love as hers and Draco's.

She sighs and gets up. "It's still a shame I can't afford this quill…" she murmurs to Ron and Harry, who stand beside her, like they always do whenever she watches the quill.

The price card says it costs fifty galleons, Hermione has got the money, but she isn't planning on spending that much money on just one quill and she know neither Harry nor Ron would ever do the same.

Harry and Ron grin and follow her out of the store.

Automatically, Hermione looks at the clock again, nearly giving herself a heart attack. Time seems to have flown by while she was in that store.

"Guys, I have to go, I was supposed to meet Ginny at a quarter to two, sorry!" she says quickly, the clock indicates it's already ten to two. Together they walk to Zonko's , where Hermione had told Ginny to wait for her. Harry and Ron were a bit surprised that they had set up a meeting without the two of them knowing, but they decide not to ask about it, much to Hermione's relief.

"It's about time, my toes are freezing off!" Ginny says, sounding a little annoyed when Hermione finally shows up.

"I'm sorry, that last store took a bit longer to explore than I thought." Hermione apologises. "Shall we?"

Ginny nods and together they walk away, in the opposite direction of the Hog's Head, to distract the boys attention.

After a while, Ron and Harry walk away, Hermione and Ginny, who had been hiding behind Zonko's door, reappear and start walking in the opposite direction that will lead them to the Hog's Head. "Let's see if your love is there already, shall we?" Ginny asks when they're in front of the door.

Hermione nods, but doesn't move, for some reason her legs seem to be malfunctioning.

Ginny notices this and drags Hermione through the entrance.

The Hog's Head seems to be completely deserted, except for the barkeeper, who is trying to clean glasses with a dirty towel.

"I think we'd better order something… before he throws us out again." Ginny whispers in Hermione's direction, who agrees with a single nod.

They walk to the bar together and order two bottles of butterbeer, after that they sit down at the bar and wait for Draco to appear.

Jut when they have finished their drinks, the door opens and a very snowy Draco comes stamping inside.

Ginny had just been on the verge of making a nasty comment about him, she wanted to say that he wouldn't show up, that he had probably just been joking with her, and that he never really wanted to meet with her. She's only slightly surprised to see him there, standing in the doorway.

"Where did all that snow suddenly come from?" he asks, cursing under his breath and stamping the snow off his boots. When he sees Hermione he puts up a nervous smile and when he seems Ginny sitting next to her, the smile fades away. He walks up to them and sits down next to Hermione.

"So this is the person you decided to trust?" he asks with an attempt for a friendly smile towards Ginny.

"I thought it would be better to trust someone I already know then to trust a complete stranger, because then you never know if she can really be trusted. And besides, Ginny saw us, that evening at the lake, she already knew." Hermione explains, trying to protect Ginny.

Draco nods and blushes a little.

"Well… then I think I should take my leave." Ginny says as she jumps off her seat.

Draco turns around to face her as she walks away. "Wait…" he says, almost yelling. Ginny turns around, looking a bit shocked.

Draco grins sheepishly and wonders if he'll be able to make up for his earlier exclamation

"I ehm… I was wondering of I could offer you something to drink… to thank you… for helping us out…" Draco stammers, he doesn't know for sure if sitting at a same table with a Weasley will actually make him feel comfortable, but it looks better than just sending her away after what she has done for them. Hermione at least, seems to agree with that, as she nods approvingly.

Ginny smiles and nods as well, she climbs back onto her seat and grins towards Hermione. "Maybe you didn't make a complete mistake after all." She says with a mischievous grin on her face.

Hermione blushes and Draco laughs a little about this, not knowing for sure of this was meant as a compliment or not. He looks at Ginny and asks her if she'd like something to drink, after he gave the order they stumble into a somewhat awkward silence.

Hermione keeps shifting in her chair and Draco keeps stroking wit his hand through his hair.

Once they've finally gotten their butterbeer, they find themselves a table in the far most corner of the bar.

Draco clears out his throat and looks at Ginny. "It's Ginny, right?" he asks to be sure. Ginny nods.

Draco takes a deep breath. "How do you think people will react when they see Hermione and me together?" he softly asks.

Ginny doesn't answer right away, but looks at Hermione first, who nervously plays with her butterbeer bottle. "I can't speak for all the houses, but I know most Gryffindors would think it's more than a little odd, some would most probably even see it as treachery." She says slowly. "But if they'd have even the slightest bit of common sense, they'll come to realise that you two are free to make your own choices, that's what I thought, at least, when I found out about you. I didn't really agree at first, but I'm going to let you do what you want because it's up to you to find out if you are right or wrong about this choice."

Draco listens with full attention to what Ginny says. "I think it sounds pretty much the same as how the Slytherin would react when they'd find out." He says, sadness clear in his voice.

"It's so unfair, I'm in love with her, but if I'd want to tell someone, all I'd get in return is hate. Of course, I can understand, Slytherin and Gryffindor are enemies of each other, they have been for as long as anyone can remember, but I would so much like to tell someone."

Ginny looks at him with a feeling of pity. "If I were you I'd think this over, at least a little longer." She says, her voice sounds dead serious.

Draco nods. "I intent to, but if you were in love, wouldn't you want to shout it from the top of your lungs? Wouldn't you want to walk hand in hand with that person without having to fear to get scolded at, or being cursed in the back? I just want to get rid of all this secrecy. It drives me mad, I have to hide that I love someone, while I don't even want that." He says while staring at his half empty butterbeer bottle.

Ginny nods, she understands what he feels, she had never expected that she would ever expect anything Draco says, and the feeling is confusing, but for the first time she can see something good in the person she has always hated so much.

"I should be going now, thanks for the drink, Draco, I wish you two a nice day together." She suddenly says, standing up, her bottle of Butterbeer still untouched on the table.

Once she has left, Hermione looks up at Draco. "You really want for this to come out?" she wonders, the feelings he just spoke about are the same feelings she's been feeling for quite some time already.

Draco shrug's his shoulders and stares at the wall behind him, his eyes look troubled. "We can't keep this a secret forever, I most definitely can't. I think I'd rather be a Slytherin outcast." He says, although doubt is clearly audible in his voice.

Hermione nods, the feeling that he'd want to go so far for her is slightly overwhelming, she was thinking the same thing herself, she has a feeling that Harry and Ron would eventually forgive her for having a relationship with Draco, of the rest, she's not that sure.

"Do you… do you feel like walking through Hogsmead with me?" she asks, her heart beats in her throat, going outside means getting seen, going outside with Draco would mean truth for everyone.

Draco's face contorts a little, he clearly hadn't expected to go into action this soon. For a moment Hermione thinks he won't have the gut to actually agree to this, but then a nervous nod and a shaky smile convince her otherwise. "The longer we wait, the more difficult it will get, right? And more danger of getting caught." He whispers in a small, uncertain voice.

Hermione nods back, her heart pounding her throat faster and her voice incapable of coming out of her mouth.

Draco grabs her hand and walks her to the door. He notices how she clenches his hand firmly and her fingers shake in fear. He decides to put gentle pressure back on her hand, to let her know he's there, and that he won't leave her alone out there.

He himself feels far from comfortable, his fear of being discovered, of being hated grows bigger by the minute.

"Well, here we go." He says nervously and he pushes the door open, out into the snowy world.


	8. Truth and More

Chapter 8 – Truth and more

Once they start wandering the cobbled Hogsmead streets, they start to relax little by little, so far no one has spoken to them and everyone seems to act pretty much normal.

Maybe that's because they've mainly been walking in the shadows of the buildings, or maybe because they take every opportunity to hide in a small alleyway, but they start to regain the fun of their trip.

"So… where you want to go?" Draco asks her once they've been wandering around aimlessly for the last half an hour.

Hermione starts to laugh, she is so bad at answering this question, every time someone asks her, she just leaves the answer up to someone else.

She suggests going to Zonko's.

Draco nods. "Is there anything fun for sale there these days?" he asks.

Hermione shrug's her shoulders. "Don't know, I just enjoy looking around and check out the new assortment in the store." She replies, feeling a little uncomfortable.

Draco nods and answers her with a smile. He grabs her hand and leads her to the store, once they've arrived, he opens the door for her and says: "After you, madam."

Hermione giggles, a bit too girlish for her liking, but her feeling of happiness prevents her for being ashamed of practically everything.

Once they've entered Zonko's they immediately regret their decision, the whole store is crowded with Hogwarts students who, apparently, were looking for a place to take cover from the cold and the heavy snowfall.

Like a group of robots, all students face the door, mouths dropping open in amazement as they witness Draco and Hermione, standing hand in hand in the doorway.

Hermione doesn't know for sure if it's because of the cold wind, but the temperature in the shop seemed to have dropped several degrees in less than a second, although it might also just have been the ice cold fear that is slowly freezing her heart.

"Malfoy?" is Neville's first question as he looks at the two, he breaks free from the group and walks towards Hermione. "You two? Together? Why in the name of Merlin's beard would you chose him? You can get so much better."

Hermione starts to blush, before turning as white as a sheet, she tries to talk, but no words leave her mouth.

Draco stands in front of her, as in order to protect her. "Who did you have in mind, Longbottom? Yourself? I don't know who she'd be better off with." He hisses like a poisoness snake and he gives Neville his usual death glare.

Hermione grabs his shoulder and tries to pull him away from him. "Leave it be, Draco, come on, lets get out of here." She whispers, afraid of a duel without rules.

Neville puts another step closer and grabs his wand, since he's joined the DA he's gained much more confidence, Hermione realises this, else he would never have dared to do this.

"What are you saying, Malfoy, that you are better than the rest? Let Hermione go, you're not worthy of a girl like her." He says, his voice dead calm.

Draco doesn't even put up an attempt to draw his wand, instead of that, he stands up to his full size, so that he's at the same height as Neville.

"I'm not saying anything, Longbottom, Hermione's with me because she wants to be, I don't suggest I'm better than the rest, I cast away that pride at the moment I gave in to the love I feel for her. This might seem fake, or strange, coming from my mouth, but it's the truth. If you want to curse me for having a relationship with someone from Gryffindor house, a non-pureblood, then be my guest." He punctuates the last sentence and spreads his arms, as if he's ready to take the hit.

Neville turns around and puts his wand away. Draco takes this opportunity and pulls Hermione out of the store with him. "Lets get out of hear." He whispers softly in her ear and Hermione is more than grateful for this escape.

Behind them they can hear the Gryffindor and Slytherin whisper words like 'Mudblood' and 'Malfoy' as they run away.

Once they're a safe distance away, Draco can no longer hold his laughter.

Hermione looks at him as if he's gone crazy and asks him what could be so funny.

Draco shakes his head, still gasping for breath. "I was just thinking… for the first time in history, the Slytherin and Gryffindor seem to agree on something." He chuckles again and wipes away his tears.

They can both agree on the fact that Draco and her don't fit together, Hermione things, for a short moment of time Hermione doesn't see the humour in it, but then she realises how completely awkward this whole situation really is and she succumbs into a soundless burst of giggling.

Once they've stopped laughing they look at each other. Draco grabs her arm and pulls her backwards into the snow, so that they lie next to each other, watching the falling snowflakes.

"Well, at least it's safe to say they know the truth now." Draco says softly while folding his hands behind his head, not knowing if he should smile or not.

Hermione nods and starts making snow angels by moving her arms up and down.

"Actually, it wasn't even all that bad, we haven't been cursed yet and we have yet to experience a hail of snowballs flying in our direction." She says, meaning it as only half a joke.

Draco grins and rolls onto his side, popping his head up one hand and staring at Hermione.

"Do you happen know a place where there are people, but where you'd less easily get noticed just for being a really strange couple?" he asks, rolling his eyes.

Hermione's grin becomes broader while she throws a small amount of snow in Draco's face. "What would you think of going to madam Puddifoot's? Couples go there all the time, I think we can avoid strange glares there… more or less." She says after a while.

Draco puts up a strange face and wipes the snow out of his eyes. "I think I'd rather spend time in Umbridge office, but seeing you do have a point, lets go take a look." He stands up and throws a large amount of snow into Hermione's hair, making her look even more like a snowman.

Hermione gives a surprised little squeal when the sudden coldness reaches her neck and she runs up to Draco as if she's planning to take revenge, Draco runs ahead of her, in the direction of madam Puddifoot's.

Still laughing, they enter the small store, as expected, everyone looks at them, but no one says as much as a word about them being a strange couple.

Draco is just busy hanging Hermione's coat when he suddenly gets pushed aside and hears a smash of human hitting wood.

He is quick to turn around and sees a black haircut and a pug-dog face just inches away from Hermione's face, wand raised and with complete anger showing through in her eyes.

"Pansy!" he breaths out.

Pansy Parkinson stands, breathing in anger, opposite Hermione, who stares back with eyes filled with fear, the smell of her overwhelming perfume tickles her nostrils and she tries to look away from her.

"Keep still, Granger!" Pansy barks, pushing her wand closer to Hermione's throat.

Hermione does as she is told and tries not to breath too much.

Draco runs towards her and pulls Pansy away from Hermione. "What in Merlin's name do you think you're doing?" he asks angrily.

Pansy pulls away from Draco and points a finger in Hermione's direction. "Did you dump me for that?" she asks, sounding half desperate, there are tears of anger in her eyes.

Draco laughs evilly and walks towards Hermione. "It's even worse than you can imagine right now." He says in a cold voice, he looks straight into Pansy's eyes and feels the familiar urge to throw out his breakfast. "I only started seeing you to forget about Hermione, you were merely a replacement, after that, I threw you away, once it became clear I could get the real object of my affection."

Hermione softly wishes she could just disappear into the wall after this confession and looks at Pansy with complete fear in her eyes.

"You filthy liar! You told me you loved me!" Pansy yells.

People from the tables closest to them look around, shocked by all the commotion.

Hermione gives them an apologising smile and hopes they'll quickly go back to being glued together.

Draco doesn't seem to notice any of this. "I lied. I never gave a damn about you." He says, his voice without emotion.

Pansy yells out in anger and hits Draco right in his face, before she succumbs into tears and runs out of the little teahouse.

"Nicely done, smart ass." Hermione says in a punishing tone, but she can barely control her appreciation.

Draco grins and wants to take her to a table, but gets stopped by a bunch of angry Slytherin. "Oh dear…" he says in a sarcastic sort of way and both of them don't know how fast to get out of the teahouse.

Once they've reached the corner of the street they find themselves in full body contact with Harry and Ron, who walk the streets with frozen, blue lips.

All four of them fall to the ground with the impact, Hermione gives a little squeal and Draco quickly pulls her back on her feet.

"Hermione… and Malfoy?" Ron murmurs in a confused sort of way when he notices the two wild looking people in front of him. Harry watches them with open mouth, in his eyes you can read a mix of horror and dangling understanding.

As soon as Harry and Ron start to move again, and are making attempts to get back on their feet, Hermione has taken Draco by his arm and is pulling him along into a random direction.

Not them too! She doesn't want more fights, especially not with her friends.

Panting, she pulls Draco along into an alleyway and they lean with their backs against the wall of a building.

Draco looks around and recognises the alleyway. They are back at the Hog's Head, the exact location where this whole trip started. Hermione notices this as well and chuckles tiredly. "Lets just go back inside." She decides to say.

Draco nods with a vague smile on his face and follows her into the bar. The bartender gives them a strange look, but after a while he begins to understand that their attempt to reveal their relationship might just have ended in a failure. He nods at them politely.

Hermione and Draco nod back at him. Draco looks around for a while, clearly lost in thoughts and then turns back to the bartender. "Is it possible to rent a room here? We really need a place to hide." He says in a hasty sort of way.

The bartender grins and puts his glass down for the first time since they've seen him. "Are you looking for a place to hide, or a place where you can have a nice time with the young lady?" he asks with a quick nod in Hermione's direction.

Hermione turns red as a beacon and wants to say she'd never do such a thing, but Draco beats her to it. "We are looking for a hiding place, but maybe you've just giving us something nice to do while we wait." He says in a challenging way.

The bartender laughs and claps his hands appreciating . "You've got some nerve, young man, I'll have to admit. Walk with me, I'll show you to your room." He's still laughing while he leads them up the stairs to the first floor, there, he gives them the key to their room. "Good luck… with… waiting…" he says with a small wink and he starts his way down the stairs again, chuckling softly.

Draco opens the door to their room and looks around. It doesn't look very special, the bed's full of dust and if you sit down on it, you immediately start sneezing, the lamps seem to be malfunctioning and it's cold. Draco doesn't complain, it's better than nothing.

He site down on the bed and watches Hermione do the same.

"Were you serious when you said you wanted to do… those things while we were waiting to return to the castle?" Hermione asks, sounding unsure.

Draco shrug's his shoulders. "It is a possibility, right?" he asks, sounding slightly ashamed of himself, he strokes a hand through is damp hair.

Hermione nods and doesn't know if the feeling she feels is fear or nerves.

Draco puts an arm around her and whispers: "It's not like we actually have to do that, it was just one of many suggestions." He says in a friendly voice.

Hermione sits down on Draco's lap and looks him in the eye with a look that clearly states doubt. She closes her eyes and kisses Draco, nervous, as if she doesn't know what she's doing, or what to expect.

We'll see where we end up, don't you think?" Hermione whispers softly in his ear.

Draco, who couldn't help but getting slightly turned on by her kiss, can understand her being uncertain, this might just actually be her first time, just as it will be his, he wraps his arms around her and nods, putting a charming smile on his face.

Hermione suddenly feels very warm inside and kisses Draco again, this time with a lot more passion.


	9. Acceptance

Chapter 9 – acceptance.

Harry and Ron walk through the streets of Hogsmead, they can't believe what their eyes have just told them, Hermione, together with Malfoy, clearly on the run.

Harry murmured something like 'it could've been expected' and Ron's mouth is still open in utter amazement.

Somewhere on the corner of the street they find Ginny, her face looks slightly oppressed. Harry grabs her by the shoulder and it takes a while for her to recognise them, her eyes seem to show slight fear.

"You knew about this? You knew about this, didn't you?" Harry asks, his voice shaking.

Ginny tries to act confused for a while, so that she has time to think about her answer, she knows he's talking about Hermione and Draco, she also knows that Harry and Ron know that she's supposed to be walking around Hogsmead with Hermione.

She nods slowly while trying to find the right words.

"I saw the two together, a little while ago at Hogwarts… Hermione confided in me and asked me to help them with a secret meeting. But it seems like the meeting turned out to be less secret than expected." She says with an attempt to joke.

Harry murmurs something she can't understand and stares off into the distance.

For the first time since they've run into Draco and Hermione, Ron has found his voice back. "You dare to say that… you actually agree with this… relationship, or whatever it may be?" he asks Ginny.

Ginny shrug's her shoulders and gives her older brother an indifferent glare. "I can't say I expected it, who did, right? But it's their choice, if they think they can be happy together, I'm fine with it, they'll have to decide for themselves what to do with their feelings. I, for one, am not planning to break my friendship with Hermione just because she's fallen in love with a ferret."

This makes Harry chuckle a little and he nods. "You might have a point there." He murmurs.

In the Hog's Head, Hermione and Draco lie next to each other on the bed, they don't do anything, they just lie there, on various occasions, Draco's hand slowly strokes Hermione's cheeks, which makes her smile. Both feel a lot more comfortable in each other's presence and seem to relax more and more by the second.

When Hermione starts moving, after a while, Draco gives her a bit of a confused look, she crawls against him, places her head on his chest and kisses him softly all over his neck, making him tremble.

He pulls her closer and throws his head back so she can explore more of the territory.

Hermione smiles against his throat and feels happy. She has accepted the possible outcome of this strange event, and feels more than willing to share herself with him.

Draco seems to be able to tall this from her appearance and slowly pushes her onto her back, with a slightly doubtful look he starts unbuttoning her blouse. For the first time today he notices how great she smells, a bit musky, sexy, with a hint of pumpkin pie.

He frowns and wonders how all these smells can emerge from one perfume.

He slowly shakes his head, this isn't the time to be thinking about that, not now his fantasies are about to come true. The smell of her perfume does seem to stimulate him further, he has to admit that much.

Hermione notices hat Draco has stopped unbuttoning her blouse and looks up with doubt in her eyes, she sees Draco with a vague smile on his face, staring at her, and she feels herself becoming more and more shy. Maybe he doesn't find her body as attractive as she initially hoped. She can imagine, the size of her breasts is scoring far below average.

A little bit fearful, she tries to distract Draco's attention away from her laced bra, which she wears just for this possible occasion.

Draco looks up, slightly confused, but when he sees the doubt in Hermione's eyes, he smiles a little. "I was just wondering about that delicious perfume you are wearing." He explains, his voice sounds a little different than it usually does, deeper, more mature maybe.

Hermione grins and throws her head back again, she completely forgot all about that, the perfume with the perfect smell for everyone.

Draco lets his fingers slide over the unexplored territory and feels a light shiver coming off Hermione's body.

His heart beats in his throat when his finishes unbuttoning Hermione's blouse and pulls it off with Hermione's assistance.

He sits up straight to have a better view of Hermione's upper body, what he sees is in contradiction with what he expected, the clothes she wears at school don't seem to do her figure any good, they have seemed to make her ten times more ugly than she is in reality, he takes a deep breath and feels even more turned on.

Down at the bar, the bartender went back to cleaning dirty glasses when Harry, Ron and Ginny walk in.

"We are looking for Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy." Harry says without greeting the man. "A girl with wild brown hair and a ferret with smooth blond hair."

The bartender nods and knows he'd better not tell that the two are currently upstairs, most likely involved with highly doubtful business. "They came to my bar earlier today, as miss redhead knows all too well. But they left and I haven't seen them since."

Harry and Ron look at each other, unsure whether to believe this story.

The bartender's eyes seem to fix on something behind the two. "If you go outside now and turn left, it's possible you'll run into them. I can't say with a hundred percent certainty, but I thought I just saw a great mane of brown hair and a piece of blond." He quickly says, hoping he sounds convincing enough. Harry and Ron look at the door and Ginny gives the bartender a scrutinizing look. He quickly looks away and resumes his cleaning of the glasses.

This looks like enough confirmation for Ginny and she drags the guys along, out of the store. "Come on, or we'll lose them again!" she says, throwing the door of the bar shut behind her.

The bartender takes a sigh of relief and grins when he notices how childish he's acting.

He whistles a familiar tune and gives himself a drink.

Hermione's back arches under the delicious attention she receives from Draco between her thighs and she moans in absolute pleasure.

Draco looks up for a mere second, but doesn't plan on giving his tongue even a second of rest.

After a while, Hermione believes she's had enough pleasure all for herself and although she finds it difficult to part with this newly found sensation between her legs, she sits up straight and pushes Draco backwards on the bed, so that his head is now at the foot of the bed.

Draco, all undressed and ready for action, now finds a Hermione between his legs, her mouth strangely close to his privates.

As soon as she takes him into her mouth, he gasps for breath and grabs the blankets with both hands to sustain this irrational feeling of pleasure.

Down at the bar, the bartender gets shocked by the arrival of Severus Snape, he's already busy making up excuses for when he starts asking for Hermione and Draco, but to his amazement, he just sits down at the bar and orders a glass of Firewhiskey.

The bartender nods and gives him his order. "Cold outside, isn't it?" he asks while he takes a stand opposite him. Snape comes here more often, so he isn't a stranger.

"Cold weather, cold feelings and hot love, for as far as I'm aware." Snape murmurs, his lips merely an inch away from the glass.

The bartender nods. "Tell me about it, this place keeps flooding with students who order nothing, but just want to know if I know the location of the two lovebirds."

Snape smiles lazily. "I believe you know their location, but you're just not willing to tell. I heard several people say that they've been sent away with the same lie. How many times can the same couple pass this bar without getting seen?" he jokes.

The bartender smiles. "I don't want them in my bar, Severus." He decides to say.

Snape's smile doesn't falter. "Where are they? They're hidden somewhere in this bar, are they not? Don't worry, I'll leave them alone, it's just that I need to know their whereabouts as a leader of this trip." His voice sounds important and somewhat forcing.

The bartender gives him a calculating look and then says: "First floor, but I think it'd be wise to leave them be for a while." His grin becomes wider once more.

Snape's ears turn a bit red while he stammers: "Are they ehm… busy?"

The bartender shakes his head and shrug's his shoulders, he can't know for sure, but the intentions of the young man seemed quite clear to him.

Snape's grin turns somewhat shameful. "It seems that he pride of my house is finally becoming a man then," he jokes. "Don't think I've got something against the fact that he's seeing a Muggleborn, I've been involved with one myself for quite some time, I'm just glad he finds himself with more luck than I did…" he seems to be lost in thoughts for a few moments and then shakes his head as if he's full of regrets. "You know what… I'll pay the bill to the room for them." He grabs a big leather pouch and counts down a lot more galleons than actually needed, Snape says it's for the commotion they have caused and wants to walk away.

"Oh, if they ask why their well doer is, don't tell them it was me, I've got the strange feeling they won't be too pleased." He says once he's reached the door.

The bartender nods, he got such an amount of money that he'd rather die than speak with one word about the mysterious well doer.

Upstairs in the room where Draco and Hermione still are, the windows are fogged, Draco is on top of Hermione, she had just tried to push him away and is now trying to make it up to him.

Draco looks at her with a questioning look on his face, he doesn't know what caused her to back out at this point.

"I became nervous… I mean… I don't know…" Hermione stammers, there are tears in her eyes.

Draco slowly caresses her hair. "This is your first time, isn't it?" she asks softly.

Hermione blushes but doesn't answer, she becomes embarrassed of herself and quickly looks the other way. "I thought… you've got a lot more experience… you had Pansy… and I don't know what exactly is expected of me…" she murmurs.

Draco claps his hands in front of his ears as if it's a joke. "Please don't ever speak that name again when we share a bed together, it affects my… mood… in a really bad way…" he jokes and looks down at his crotch.

Hermione chuckles a little at this remark.

"If you really want to know, Pansy and I never really did anything, we tried, because she insisted in it, but when we did, I couldn't get him up, I get sick just thinking about it…" Draco says, blushing slightly. "I've got just as much experience as you do."

Hermione nods and giggles a little, these sort of stories always amaze her, coming from Draco's mouth. She seductively puts her leg around Draco and says: "Then please don't let me stop you from increasing your experience with me."

Draco doesn't have to let her say this twice.

Downstairs, at the bar, the bartender has fallen to his knees and is praying to every possible god for forgiveness, might he ever have done something wrong in his life.

A group of Slytherin had just walked into his bar and had threatened him with their wands, they said they would curse him if he didn't tell them about the location of Draco and the 'Mudblood'.

The bartender had stuttered that he didn't know where they were and the Slytherin seemed to think he was talking the truth, they had hit him in the face and walked out of the shop again.

But not long after that, a girl with a pug-dog face came waltzing into the bar, completely in rage, she said that she heard from several sources that Draco and the Gryffindor bitch were here, having sex, and when she didn't get the answer she wanted, she started throwing with tables and chairs, the next moment, the bartender threw her out of the bar, using a hover charm, quite afraid to sustain even more injuries.

Those two mean trouble… he thinks sadly when he looks around his half demolished bar.

He decides it'd be best to close the bar before even more people show up.

Now all he has to hope for is that no one will throw stones through the window.

Outside, the snowstorm keeps raging and the bartender silently hopes that they'll quite the outing earlier.

Draco is panting hard when he collapses next to Hermione, tired of all the effort and pleasure.

Hermione is smiling when she looks at him. It had taken a lot shorter than she expected, not that she was keeping track of the time, but in her opinion it could've taken longer.

In the beginning it had hurt and Draco had asked her several times if he should quit, but Hermione had stubbornly refused this, telling him that it'd feel better soon, so Draco continued. Just when it started feeling better for Hermione, it was over and she could hardly remain a serious face when she saw the embarrassed look on Draco's face.

She is just about to lie down in his arms when they are shocked by a voice that seems to come out of nowhere.

'All students are to assemble on the town square, due o the snowstorm, we will be leaving earlier than planned.'

It was McGonagall's voice and it had never sounded less welcome to Hermione.

With a sigh, she sits up straight and looks at Draco who is chuckling as he puts himself upright.

"Pretty well timed, I think I wouldn't have been able to do anything anymore if that if that voice rang out just a few minutes before." He jokes, he gives Hermione a quick kiss on the mouth and slowly gets dressed.

Hermione grins at herself, a few minutes ago nothing would've really happened, so that'd mean they would both still have been a virgin now.

She stands up as well and searches for her clothes that were scattered all across the room.

A few minutes later they walk downstairs and are more than amazed to find the store like a complete ruin. "What happened here?" Hermione asks, shock clearly audible in her voice, she has a hunch, but she'd rather not see it come true.

The bartender gives them a disdainful look. "Your little classmates came waltzing into this bar, asking me over and over again if I had seen a Slytherin and a Gryffindor in my bar, they said I was keeping you hidden.

Then suddenly an ugly one came in, someone with black hair and a pug-dog face, who started trashing all my furniture, she said something about the Mudblood who had stolen her boyfriend. I used a hover charm to get her out of the bar. Decided to close early today after that." He explains.

Draco and Hermione look at each other, feeling rather ashamed of themselves.

"What do I owe you?" Draco asks, just so he'll have something else on his mind.

"Nothing… someone's paid for you already, and it's enough to restore the whole bar as well." The bartender says happily, waving a bag of galleons in front of their eyes.

At this point, Draco and Hermione are even more stunned then before. "Who did that?" Hermione wants to know.

The bartender shakes his head. "I'm not allowed to tell, and for this amount of galleons, I will most definitely keep my mouth shut. And now you'd better get off, Everyone's waiting for you."

Hermione grabs Draco's hand and pulls him out of the bar so that they land, almost immediately, on the town square where everyone's waiting for department.

Professor McGonagall is busy reading all the names and Hermione hears her name. She waves her and in the air and yells: "Here!" over the yelling of the wind.

Everyone turns around at them, but no one moves, no one comes running at them.

Carefully, they walk towards he group, they notices Harry, Ron and Ginny waving at them. After a short pause, they decide to join them.

"Right, it looks like we're complete, lets go." McGonagall yells to the students and while firmly holding on to her head, she leads the way to the row of carriages that will lead them back to Hogwarts.

Harry, Ron, Ginny, Hermione and Draco decide to share a carriage and slam the door closed, they immediately leave in the direction of the school.

"So where have you two been today?" Ron asks right away.

Harry shakes his head. "That's not what you're supposed to ask when it's actually something else you want to know." He comments, he looks from Hermione to Draco, his lips are blue from the freezing cold and his face is trying to hide his horror.

"We're actually trying to say that we won't hate you for this. You are our friend, Hermione, and you will stay our friend, even now."

Hermione looks at Harry with the utmost gratefulness and she smiles broadly. "Thank you, Harry, those are the words I wished to hear all day, especially from you." She stammers.


	10. The request

Chapter 10 – The request

The days at Hogwarts seemed more brilliant than ever before now Hermione could just walk around freely with Draco at her side, without needing to feel embarrassed.

The students seem to treat her a little different than before, some of them were refusing to talk to her and she needed to duck every time she passed Pansy in the hallway, because she would always get targeted with a curse or a charm, but other than that, things seemed to go perfectly.

It wasn't quite the same for Draco though, most of his house didn't want anything to do with him anymore now it was clear who he was hanging out with. Some people, like Crabbe and Goyle, still stayed close to him and some others actually even seemed to appreciate his choice and started to act a lot less hostile against Mudbloods, but other than that, his school life had most definitely taken a turn for the worst.

He still remains to the fact though, that he would much rather have his life like this, then to go back to the life as it was before he knew Hermione, but Hermione can't help but feeling guilty.

Two weeks has passed since, Hermione and Draco see each other almost every day if their schedule allows it, most of the time they just do their homework together and sometimes they escape the castle for a little while to go back to the place where they met for the first time as boyfriend and girlfriend.

The Christmas holidays are drawing near and teachers keep giving their students less and less homework, everyone's looking forward to the holidays.

On one of those occasions in which they have time to spare, Draco walks up to Hermione, his face betrays a flicker of shyness as he sits beside her, immediately, some other people on the table stand up and leave.

He gathers all his courage as he sees Hermione smiling at him. "Would you like to spend Christmas at my place?" he asks in one breath.

Hermione's smile disappears as soon as it came and he clasps a hand in front of her mouth. "I'm so sorry, Draco, I already promised Ron to spend Christmas with his family!" she says, sounding quite shocked.

The already oppressed face becomes even more sad. "I shouldn't have asked it at such short notice. Ah well, it's probably for the best… I'd get a lot of complaints anyway if I'd take you home with me…" he murmurs and with a quick kiss on Hermione's cheek and an attempt for a forgiving smile in Ron's direction, he walks away and rejoins his own house.

Ron casts an embarrassed look in Hermione's direction and says: "If you want I could ask my family if they'd want to have him over for Christmas."

Hermione can't hide the glimpse of hope in her eyes fast enough and Ron immediately nods. "I'll send them an owl." He says without asking further and he walks out of the study hall, on to the common room.

Harry looks at Hermione and raises an eyebrow. "No one asks for my opinion these days." He jokes.

Hermione chuckles a little. "I'm sorry if you don't agree to it, I was planning to refuse the offer, but he was gone before I could even respond." She murmurs shyly.

Harry shakes his head. "Christmas is something you should celebrate with friends, family and loved ones, strangely enough, Draco has recently become part of that." He says like it's the most normal business in the world.

Hermione nods and smiles again, but this time not in embarrassment, but in gratitude.

That evening, a hyperactive owl reaches the Weasley family, he flies right into Misses Weasley's dinner.

"It's a letter from Ron!" she says with a smile and she helps the owl back on it's feet.

Absent minded, plucking owl feathers out of her dinner, she reads the letter.

With a strange sort of scream, she throws the remains of her dinner over her lap.

Mister Weasley gives her an amazed look. "What is it honey?" he asks, sounding worried. "Is something wrong with Ron?"

Misses Weasley shakes her head. "Ron's fine, but I think Hermione has lost her mind." She says breathlessly.

Mister Weasley grabs the letter from his wife and starts reading it.

'Dear mom and dad,

This might come as a complete surprise to you both, no one here expected it at least, but Hermione's got a boyfriend.

Now, that's not really a surprise of course, but the one she's hanging out with sure as hell is. The name of the love of her life is Draco Malfoy.'

Mister Weasley's hands nearly pinch holes in the parchment, but he calmly continues reading.

'After long consideration between Harry, Ginny and me, we decided not to let Hermione down because of her relationship with him, she's been our friends for years, we don't want to lose her because of this. To our utter surprise, Draco isn't really that bad to be around as long as he's not surrounded by someone of his own house. You should know that his whole house practically hates his now, just because he's got something going on with Hermione, but he chooses her over everything else.

Now I'll ask you the most surprising question, coming from my side this time.

Draco had asked Hermione to join him and his family for Christmas this year at the Malfoy manor, but seeing as Hermione already arranged to be here for Christmas, I was wondering if Draco might be allowed to join us this year, so that you can amaze yourself over his change in behavement as well.

If more members of the family allow Draco to join us, I would like to have an owl back as an acknowledgement, or else with a rejection.

Thanks in advance,

Ron

Mister Weasley takes a deep breath and nods. "Fine then, I would love to see a completely different side from Malfoy." He says wit a grin, the underlying thought being that he'd be able to bully Lucius with that at work.

Misses Weasley seemed to be able to guess her husband's thoughts and nods as an agreement, after cleaning up the mess on the dinner table with a single swoosh of her wand, she grabs a quill and some parchment to write the same message on different sheets of parchment, to send to the other members of the family who have been invited over.

When she's finished she decides to take a slightly more reliable owl and puts Pigwidgeon, Ron's owl in the closet where he feels most at ease, so he can get some rest.

It is not until the end of the next day that Harry gets Pigwidgeon back with the answer of his parents.

With a face that shows that he doesn't know which answer would satisfy him most, he unties the letter from his owl's leg and puts in back on his feet again, seeing as he flew right into a fruit bowl.

He reads the answer and sees to his huge surprise that all the other family members agreed on having Malfoy over with Christmas. He had at least thought that Fred and George would disagree, but after having thought about it for a moment, this would actually be the perfect chance for the twins to make a complete fool out of Draco. He can't quite suppress an expecting grin.

Completely at the bottom of the letter, there are a few quickly scribbled words, evidentially coming from his brother, Bill, who asks what Draco would like as a Christmas present.

Seeing as Ron doesn't know the answer to this question, he decides not to answer, Pigwidgeon has flown enough for today.

With a cleared face, he walks down the hall, where he knows he'll find Hermione and Draco.

"I've talked to my family and… if you want, you can join us for Christmas, so you can still be with Hermione." He tells Draco, keeping his face as polite as possible.

Draco watches him with open mouth. "Christmas as your place?" he asks, not knowing for sure if he should take this as good news or not.

Ron nods and immediately regrets his decision. To his utter amazement, Draco starts to smile and holds his hand out in front of him. Without shaking it, Ron looks at it in suspicion.

"I really appreciate it that you wanted to do this for us, I know almost for sure that you didn't do it on my behalf, and I can't blame you for that, I also know that it probably took quite some convincing to get your family to agree with this, so… thank you." Draco says, his voice sounds surprisingly nice and even grateful.

Ron's face looks a lot happier after this, the idea that Draco didn't make any weird comments about his family and the money they don't have makes him feel a lot better. "So you'll join us?" he asks.

Draco nods. "I'd love to, although I think I'll have to tell my father a different story else I'll immediately be erased from the family tree." He jokes.

Ron chuckles nervously and nods as well. He murmurs a goodbye and leaves Draco alone with Hermione again.

Hermione smiles up at Draco and Draco smiles back, wondering what the heck he's going to tell his parents now he's not coming home for Christmas.

He shakes his head and says: "I think I'll go down to the common room to write something to my parents." He says softly and with a light hug for Hermione he walks to his common room.

Once he's arrived there, he thinks about what he should write, whatever it'll be, it's going to be a complete lie, if his parents would ever find out, they'll definitely be pissed.

With a great sigh, he grabs a quill and a piece of parchment.

'Dear father and mother,' he starts

'I decided to celebrate Christmas at Hogwarts, seeing this is our last year.

The people from my house have decided to throw a large party, the house elves are going to make an immense load of food for us, under the threatening wand of Pansy, so Christmas dinner won't be a problem.

I hope you'll have a nice Christmas.

Kiss from your son,

Draco.'

He reads his letter again, but can't find any mistakes or things that can be misread, the part about the House elves will probably convince them even more that he's staying at school.

With a satisfied nod, he stands up and walks to the tower where the owls are currently sleeping. He wakes a big, noticeable owl and sends it away.

As soon as he goes back downstairs he crosses the path of Severus Snape who gives him a strange smile, he puts a hand on Draco's shoulders and whispers in his ear: "It'll do a person good to get presents for Christmas, maybe you should think of something to give to those people."

Draco looks at him and nods. Snape wants to continue his way up the stairs and Draco quickly calls after him: "Thanks for paying the bill to our room."


	11. expected and unexpected

Chapter 11 – expected and unexpected

Draco walks up to the Great Hall, completely lost in thoughts, he has no idea what to give to the Weasleys for Christmas. What do these people like? He wonders for the tenth time.

He can't begin to imagine what people, so different from himself, would like as a present.

He enters the Great Hall and notices Ron, alone at a table, Hermione and Harry are nowhere in sight.

He think about his actions for a while and then walks up to Ron.

"Weasley, I wonder if I could have a minute of your time, I need some… advise…" he admits, his face looks half disgusted.

Ron looks up and is startled to a point that he nearly falls off his chair and then nods.

He had never expected that Draco would come to him while he was alone, even less that he would actually need his advice.

He somewhat expects that Draco needs advice about Hermione, something he's totally unable to help him with, seeing he has absolutely no knowledge of girls what so ever.

With a bit of a doubtful look on his face, he follows Draco out of the Great Hall and tries to stay as undetected as possible, so that no one will see he's following a Slytherin. An impossible task, he notices after a few seconds, even before they've reached the doors of the Great Hall, all the students in there have turned their heads and are now facing them.

"What is it? It's gotta be important if you actually want to see me for it." Ron says once they've left the castle and stand in front of the lake.

Draco shrug's his shoulders, important… it's how you look at it. For him it's important if he wants to leave a good impression, but it isn't a matter of life and death. "I would like to know what I should get your family for Christmas. I don't know your family and I don't have a clue what thy like. Buying a present is of course the best thing to do if you're invited over for Christmas." He says, his voice so soft that Ron needs to get closer to him in order to hear what he's saying.

After thinking this over for a moment, Ron is still as confused as he was before, he had expected a lot of questions, but a question about buying something nice for his family, no, that was definitely not what he expected.

Draco grins sheepishly when he notices Ron's expression and shrug's his shoulders.

Ron sits down and grabs a quill and some parchment out of his backpack. "I'll make you a list with things they always wanted to have. If it is not entirely possible to buy these things, you'll have to think of something yourself, alright?" he asks softly and he starts writing.

Draco nods and takes place beside him on the grass, watching how Ron moves the quill along the underside of his chin while he thinks about his family wishes. He can somewhat imagine how difficult it is for him to think of such a thing, something that isn't really all that expensive to him, but he can also imagine that there'll be a lot of things on that list that the Weasley family themselves can't afford.

Finally, after an hour of writing, scrapping and thinking, Ron has finished his list, he seals it and gives it to Draco. "This is all I can think of at the moment, there's got to be some things on that list that are good enough to buy." He says, sounding as calm as possible, but Draco can read in his eyes that the idea of getting presents from a Slytherin, from Draco, most definitely doesn't make him feel at ease.

Or maybe it's just because he's ashamed of his family's wishes, because they might want things that an ordinary witch or wizard might not have in his or her wanted list.

Draco nods and thanks Ron with a friendly smile, to further spare Ron's feelings, he goes back to the Great Hall on his own and leaves the list unopened.

Once he's entered the Great Hall, he finds Hermione, they decide to meet each other after the lessons so that they can make plans for the shopping trip.

The lessons go by fast, during the Transfiguration lessons, Draco is reading the list of possible gifts when McGonagall disturbs him and asks what he's doing. With a daring voice he tells her honestly that he's making plans for the Christmas holidays, he looks through the class, sees Hermione grin and Ron's ears turn red and he quickly decides to look back at professor McGonagall.

Professor McGonagall makes a disapproving sound and snatches the list which caught Draco's attention.

'My mother, Molly Weasley…' she reads, she recognises Ron's handwriting and immediately starts to understand that Draco's trying to find out what the Weasley family wants for Christmas.

She hands the list back to Draco with a little smile, for the first time in her life, she feels something else than outright dislike for this Slytherin. "It would do me great pleasure if you halted that activities until after class, mister Malfoy." She says in her strict way of talking, after that she walks back to her desk to observe how people are trying to Summon things.

When the class is over and all students are happily celebrating the end of a long school day, Draco gets called over to professor McGonagall. "Malfoy, if you are planning to buy presents, you'll have to get a consent from your Head of House, in your case, professor Snape. You can't get a consent without a letter from your parents that they allow you to leave the school." She explains, her voice kinder than normally.

Draco nods, thanks her and walks away. Another problem, how can he ask to let his parent allow him to go Christmas shopping?

He shrug's his shoulders, that is of later concern, he'd better go over to Hermione to talk about their ideas.

Hermione is waiting for him when he finally turns up. Panting, he explains that McGonagall wanted a quick word with him after class and Hermione gives him an understanding nod.

The whole afternoon they decide what would be best to buy for the family, the best thing to wear for Draco as long as they are there and how he certainly shouldn't act to some of the things that might happen while they're there.

Hermione's a little startled about the fact that Draco could sum up the courage to ask Ron about the list of possible presents, but Draco shakes his head and says something like 'would be sad if Weasley didn't get anything'.

After that Draco decides to tell Hermione that they'll need a consent form if they plan on doing Christmas shopping, Hermione starts to smile, telling him she already knows that because she had to do it before.

Draco, on the other side, isn't quite as confident that he'll get the wanted answer out of his parents.

After having discussed this, it's time for dinner, Hermione and Draco, both at their own House table, quickly finish their food and then disappear into their own dorm to write a letter to their parents.

Hermione isn't at all worried about getting permission, she never failed to get it.

Draco needs to think for a while before he is able to write a note and once he's put the quill on the parchment, it's only to write the following words: 'We, of Slytherin House, have decided to exchange presents with each other, I would like your permission to go to Diagon alley and Hogsmead this weekend.'

Both of them meet again in the Owl tower where Hermione is watching Hedwig, Harry's owl, fly out of sight.

"Did you manage to write something down?" she asks Draco, he merely nods and locates his favourite owl once more. Once he's found it, he ties the letter to it's paw and sends it away without a second thought.

"There, now there's no possibility of backing out anymore." He says to Hermione as he notices she's waiting for him.

Together they walk downstairs where they spend the evening making whatever little amount of homework they've got. There are three days left before the weekend and the holidays start after the weekend. Knowing this, they also know that they're under a slight amount of pressure, because, just like Muggle shops, the shops for Witches and Wizards are also closed on Sundays.

Hermione gets her permission the next day, Draco needs to wait a day longer, he was already quite nervous because he only had one day left before the weekend.

When he sees the owl flying in, he suddenly understands why it took longer than expected, his father had gone to Gringrotts for him and had sent him a large bag of gold along with his permission, just to buy presents.

He feels soar in his throat because of that, he's telling all these lies, just to be with Hermione and he gets rewarded with a large bag of gold to buy presents for a family largely detested by the Malfoy family. For a moment he considers telling the truth to his parents, but he quickly decides against it. It would be very unwise to tell them now that everything was a lie.

Ron watches the huge gold bag that Draco just got with wide open mouth.

"Do you recon his parents know that it's going to be spend on my family?" he asks gloomy.

Hermione and Harry shake their head. "Not a chance, else he would never have gotten any gold. He told a complete lie." Harry says, there's a small grin around his lips.

"I won't be here this weekend, I'm going Christmas shopping with Draco." Hermione announces happily. The guys nod.

Hermione sees how Draco, sitting at the Slytherin table, smiles at her and nods, as if he wants to say he got the approval.

That same night they walk up to the teachers they need and ask McGonagall and Snape permission to go to Hogsmead and Diagon Alley. They get the consent. That evening they spend a lot of time talking about where they should go and what they will buy.


	12. Christmas Shopping

Chapter 12 – Christmas Shopping

Finally the weekend has come, Hermione wakes up early to pack her things for the Christmas holidays. She smiles the whole time an whistles a tune she has heard before.

Today is the day she'll go shopping with Draco. They already know what they'll buy, so it seems they won't need a whole lot of time with shopping, but at least they'll be together.

Once she's in the hallway in front of the Great Hall, she has to wait another half an hour before Draco finally shows up.

Together, they walk outside, off the boundaries of the school so they can Disapparate.

A few seconds later they stand in the snow covered streets of Diagon Alley where the first part of their shopping mission will take place.

Draco takes out the list of presents and looks around to see where they can best go first. His eyes fall on a shop called 'Magical Souvenirs' and he says: "Lets go there first."

Hermione nods and they enter the shop.

After having visited most of the shops they needed to visit, their arms are packed with several large and heavy bags and they somewhat wonder how on Earth they're supposed to get the rest of the presents.

They only need presents for Fred, George, Ron and, of course, each other.

First they decide to get something to drink at a nearby restaurant to get some rest. They've been walking around for half the morning and their legs are quite tired of it.

"So…" Hermione says once they are waiting for their drinks. "We've got a skirt and a talking apron for Misses Weasley, a miniature Norwegian Ridgeback for Charlie, the books 'Quidditch Mysteries and Accomplishments' and 'How to handle the ladies' for Harry, for Ginny I bought a new bottle of perfume, seeing I used up the last bit of her perfume last time, you still need to buy something for her… we don't need many presents anymore." She sums up, meanwhile, their Butterbeers have arrived and she gratefully takes a sip from it.

Draco nods and takes a look at the list, he notices that for the next items, they'll have to go to the Weasley twins, something he isn't much looking forward to.

When they've finished and payed for their drinks, after some fighting over the bill, seeing Draco insisted on paying Hermione's drink as well, they continue their journey.

Their journey leads them to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes where Fred and George work.

The shop is still as colourful as they can remember, the poster about Voldemort (Why Are You Worrying About You-Know-Who? You SHOULD Be Worrying About U-NO-POO the Constipation Sensation That's Gripping The Nation!) got removed and replaced with posters of Christmas sales and new items to buy at the shop.

They walk inside and immediately notice Fred and George with their red hair and clashing clothes.

They look around and see Draco and Hermione walking in, an evil grin instantly covers their faces.

"Good morning you two!" Hermione says happily, walking up to the guys. "You happen to have some tips for Christmas presents?"

Fred nods and George quickly mimics him. "Always enough in store, Hermione." Fred says. "Take your time looking around while we get some stuff from behind." George adds to it.

Hermione nods and looks around for a moment.

Draco keeps loitering in front of the Muggle Magic tricks department and keeps picking up items, he still doesn't have a clue what to buy for Mister Weasley.

"Are you interested in one of these items?" Fred asks, trying to sound as business like as possible without laughing, the idea of Draco looking at Muggle artefacts is just as funny as seeing a grown up dragon doing a back flip.

Draco shrug's his shoulders. "I somewhat understood that your father loves these kind of things, so I thought it'd be nice if I got him something like this." He murmurs, pointing at a magic box.

Fred nods, his desire to laugh fades a little, it seems that Draco is actually being serious about the shopping, and seeing the bags around his arms, he already managed to get a lot of what he needs.

He helps Draco with finding a present for his father and within an instant their in front of the register, Draco carrying a Muggle card game for Mister Weasley. Fred had managed to convince him that it wouldn't take much more to make the man happy.

After that Hermione drags Draco along the shop so he can find himself a present, this takes a lot longer than expected because he can't choose between the Skiving Snackboxes and the Headless Hats.

In the end they leave after Hermione has bought him two presents, of course she doesn't intent on telling Draco this, but she does know that buying a whole stack of Skiving Snackboxes isn't really all that good for the weight of the bags.

They had bought Hang ears and Reusable Hangman for Ron and now they only needed two more presents, the ones being for Fred and George.

For this, they needed to go to the post office.

"I'm so tired…" Hermione whines on their way to the post office. Her feet hurt from all the walking, the shopping took a lot longer than expected. The afternoon is coming to an end already, most people they've encountered on the way have already gone home.

If they'd be completely honest to each other, they don't feel much like continuing themselves, but they don't have much of a choice. They need to get all the presents today.

Once they've entered the post office and Hermione has joined the long row of waiting costumers, Draco quickly slips out of sight to one of the chimney's on the side of the building, He grabs some Floo Powder and puts his head inside.

"Gryffindor Common room!" he yells and he throws the Floo Powder in.

He immediately gets the feeling that his head is ripped off his body and a second later he hears a girl yelling and running up the stairs.

"Harry Potter, Harry Potter!! The head of Draco Malfoy suddenly appeared in the fire!" he hears someone yell and he knows he has reached his destination.

Harry immediately comes running up to the fire. "What the hell are you thinking? Why do you appear in our fireplace?" he asks, sounding a bit angry.

Draco grins sheepishly. "I need your help, I don't have a clue what to give Hermione for Christmas…" he murmurs softly, trying to keep his mouth shut most of the time so he won't inhale the ashes.

Harry starts to laugh. "And only because of that you decided to travel all the way to our common room? Alright, I'll tell you this: there's a quill, Hermione wanted it for ages, it's indebted with little diamonds and writes in the colours of your feelings. It's quite expensive, that's why no one's ever bought it for her, but maybe you can manage." He suggests, still grinning because of Draco's courage.

Draco nods and for a moment it seems as if the other half of his body is writing something down. Then he says: "Thanks, Potter." And he's gone.

He stands up straight again and brushes the ash from his hair, being blond is one think, but early grey doesn't suit him that much. When he looks around, he notices Hermione hasn't really changed from position yet. She still stands in the same place in line. At the front there is an extremely old wizard who clearly has trouble hearing seeing that the man behind the counter is talking rather loudly. It takes ages before he finally has what he wants.

Draco smiles. He can use this opportunity very well. As long as Hermione keeps standing in that line like a good little girl, he can sneak out and get her the present she wants.

He walks up to her, whispers in her that he'll be gone for a moment and that Hermione will have to wait for him in front of the post office. Hermione seems to understand the hint and happily nods, her unpleased expression immediately disappears. She clears some last traces of ash from his hair and sends him away. Draco runs out of the post office to Flourish & Blotts down the road.

He looks around the shop, but can't find what he's looking for. He quickly walks up to the man behind the counter.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for a quill indebted with little diamonds that writes in the colours of your emotions, you happen to have one?" he asks.

The man shakes his head. "The only store that sells that quill is in Hogsmead, sir." He says politely.

Draco traces his hand through his hair and says with a stressful voice: "Thank you, I'll try it there then." And he runs out of the store again.

Back on the street he Disapparates and re-appears in Hogsmead. Without waiting for his legs to get accustomed to solid ground again, he starts running in the direction of the quill shop.

Once he enters, he immediately notices the quill, it's separated from the rest in a transparent bowl to keep it safe.

He walks to the counter and immediately says he wants that quill, without even looking at the price, he already knows he's going to buy it, no matter what.

The man behind the counter is most amazed that the object will finally get sold and that the man buying it is in such a hurry. After he's found out that it's a Christmas present, he carefully removes it from it's safe keeping and wraps it up for Draco.

Draco, who was waiting with quite some impatience, quickly grabs the quill, counts down the immense amount of Galleons and leaves the store again, happy that he was able to buy the quill, but not so happy that his money bag is close to being empty now. This way he won't be able to treat Hermione to some ice-cream.

He hurries back to Diagon Alley and runs up to the post office, where Hermione just emerges from the exit. Panting and with his hands placed on his knees, he waits for his heart to calm down a bit. "Mission 'Christmas Shopping' complete!" he then says, wearing a great grin on his face, holding up all the bags in front of her as prove to his truth.

Hermione giggles and gives a sigh of relief, glad that they can finally take some rest.

First we need to do something else, she thinks and she takes Draco along to Florean Fortescue's Ice-cream Parlor and asks him what kind of ice-cream he would like, she's got more than enough money left for two large ice-creams.

Both of them order a large ice cone with three layers, Hermione takes the flavours chocolate, hazelnut and coconut and Draco takes three layers of lemon.

Enjoying their ice-cream while sitting on the terrace in front of the store, they look over the roofs of the shops, where the sun gradually paints the sky red. All around them the stores on Diagon Alley close and they grin lazily at each other. They were just in time to complete every last bit of shopping.


	13. Christmas at the Weasleys

Chapter 13 – Christmas at the Weasley's

The next day all the Weasleys, Harry, Hermione and Draco are on their way to The Burrow. The way back on the train seemed to be somewhat close to hilarious seeing that because of the immense amount of presents, Draco and Hermione could hardly fit in to the compartment anymore. On their way they played some games, Ron had to laugh a lot while playing Wizard's Chess with Draco because the pieces Draco controlled didn't seem to trust him at all. ('squash him, SQUASH HIM idiot, it's just a pawn!')

The trip was over sooner than anticipated. Without a second warning they had ended on platform 9 ¾ where mister and misses Weasley were waiting for them.

Laden with presents, Draco and Hermione step outside, tripping over the bags and their trunks when they try to take it with them on their descend from the train.

They get a warm welcome, even Draco, although they eye him with certain doubt. Draco gives them a friendly look and smiles up at them. "Good morning, mister and misses Weasley, thank you for allowing me to stay with you this Christmas." He says politely.

Misses Weasley smiles friendly back at him. "Not a problem at all, dear boy, a friend of Hermione is a friend of ours… in some way at least…" she adds softly.

Draco takes credit from this explanation and follows the Weasleys to the exit of the station, wondering how they'll all end up at the Weasley's house and when his eyes fall on the really small car in front of him, he has to prevent himself from laughing, would they ever fit in there?

Pictures of the Weasley family sitting on the roof of the car shoot through his mind and again he needs to stop himself from succumbing into laughter.

"Everybody, please get inside!" mister Weasley says when he opens the door to the backseats. He himself starts loading all the trunks and bags into the back of the car.

Draco watches dumbstruck when Weasley after Weasley gets into the car.

When finally Hermione has seated herself inside, Draco takes a seat as well, all of the people are seated neatly next to each other on a couch that seemed to have stretched large enough to ensure a comfortable seat for every last one.

At this point Draco can't help himself anymore and starts to laugh, the car has been magically enlarged, he should've known, Arthur Weasley's love for be-witching non-magical objects.

He takes a seat next to Hermione and stretches his legs comfortably in front of him.

The journey to the Burrow goes without trouble, although the tension in the car would've told them otherwise. From time to time the Weasley's steal a glance at Draco, as if they think he's about to blow up their house as soon as he looks at it.

Draco feels highly uncomfortable, yes, of course, he has talked bad about their house as often as he could, but this time it's different, he's hanging out with them because he's seeing Hermione… He wouldn't try to say something that would make them feel uncomfortable.

As soon as they've reached The Burrow, Draco's mouth drops open in utter amazement. The house looks as if it has been expanded at the most impossible places and everything looks to be hitherto and all over the place.

Still, it has it's flair, a bit of a homey touch.

Once everyone's out of the car, they are all silently watching Draco, who hasn't said a word yet, he knows he has to say something, but he has trouble finding the right words.

"What? You won't hear me complaining, it looks better than my house in many ways…" he grins, shrugging his shoulders.

The Weasley's chuckle as well, but are unsure what to believe.

Together they walk up to the lane that leads to the house, again, Draco looks around in utter amazement, the garden looks wild, with chickens running lose everywhere.

Once in the house, everyone gets a large bowl of soup to warm up a little and misses Weasley immediately starts complaining about the fact that Harry looks a bit underfed. Draco grins absent-mindedly and looks through the house.

It is small, just like he expected, but it looks a lot cosier than he had thought, the living room looks a bit untidy, which gives him the feeling that he's back at his house, in his bedroom, before his mother cleans everything again.

Draco will have to share a room with Harry and Ron, which he doesn't mind as much as he once would have.

Together, they put up the beds and Ron shyly admits that he sort of expected Draco to laugh him right in his face because his room is this small.

Draco doesn't reply, he thinks it's better not to, he deserved all the nasty comments in his direction.

The day ends quickly, it's as if everything is ten times as fun now he's here at the Weasley's, Fred and George get home early that evening, carrying a bewitched Christmas tree, which sings Christmas songs whenever anyone gets near it. "Honestly, it drove me crazy on the way back!" Fred jokes, looking at George. "Well then you should've bewitched it so that it wouldn't respond to us." George replies.

During dinner, Draco gets interrogated by the two, about his likes and dislikes, what he's expecting this Christmas, if he thinks he'll ever become good at Quidditch (at this point Draco throws a potato at Fred's head) and just when George has asked if he and Hermione had sex yet, misses Weasley thinks it's high time to go to bed. The others whine about this a little, they would've loved to know the answer, but misses Weasley's resolve is absolute.

That night, Draco doesn't get much sleep, Ron happens to snore so loudly, that it keeps him awake all night, until Harry is finally clever enough to throw a pillow in his face, so he turns around and stops snoring.

Draco laughs about this a little and he could've sworn that Harry laughed as well.

The next morning is the first day of Christmas. When Draco wakes up, there's a big pile of presents at the foot of his bed and his looks at it in amazement, he hadn't really expected to get presents as well, of course, he left his pile of presents on the kitchen table for the others, but he hadn't expected anything in return because he joined much notice.

"Merry Christmas!" Ron says, he's wide awake and already eagerly opening his presents. Draco wishes him a merry Christmas as well and looks at the presents Ron's gotten.

A huge bag of Every Flavoured Beans, a sneakoscope, apparently from Harry, seeing Ron's thanking Harry, a Weasley sweater with the letter R imbedded in it, he had also already unwrapped Hermione's present, because they're on top of his nightstand, Harry looks at it with much interest. Ron's just opening Draco's present, Draco coughs and shifts position to look at what Harry's gotten. He notices some similar things, a big bag of Every Flavoured Beans and a Weasley sweater with an H imbedded.

"I bet you got one as well." Harry tells him when he notices Draco's looking at the sweater and he points at the most ragged present of all.

Draco grins, all these years he has been making fun out of them because they were wearing those sweaters and now he'll get one of his own. He'll wear it too, he tells himself.

Just when he's about to open the present, he hears an amazed squeal from Ron's side and he looks around, he holds up Draco's present so that everyone can see and stares at it with open mouth. "Marble Wizard's Chess…" he murmurs softly. "That's the best of the best…"

He looks at Draco and thanks him in silence. Draco smiles a little. "Merry Christmas, Weasley." He says kindly and he unwraps his Weasley sweater. There's a note in it: 'We're sorry, we didn't have time to think of a better present.' Draco turns bright red. No time or no money? He wonders, probably the latter, he'll make sure he'll show everyone how happy he is with that sweater.

Ron looks at the sweater and looks as if he's about to get sick, it's green and has a silver D on it. "Won't she ever get tired of that? Everyone gets one of those…" he says in an apologizing way.

Draco shakes his head. "I don't really have that much warm winter clothing, only that dark stuff my mom likes so much, so I'm quite happy with a nice warm sweater." He says in a clear voice, his eyes are sparkling and he's just about to put on the sweater as Hermione comes waltzing into the bedroom. "Merry Christmas everyone!" she yells happily, she looks at Draco, who's still only wearing his boxershort and is sitting on his bed, she starts to blush a little. Harry and Ron quickly cover their bodies with their blankets .

Draco gets up from the bed and gives Hermione a kiss on her mouth and a hug. "Merry Christmas!" he says happily and he pulls the sweater over his head. Hermione looks as if she could jump him out of happiness. "Misses Weasley will be so happy you're wearing it! She's downstairs, looking at her skirt as if it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen and she keeps stammering that she wishes she could've given you something better."

If possible, Draco turns even more red after hearing this. "Help me with unwrapping these presents, will you? Then I can go downstairs and thank her." He says, sounding a little hurried.

Hermione nods and sits down on the camping bed, she grabs a presents and says: "Merry Christmas from Harry Potter. Quidditch throughout the ages." She says and hands it to Draco while he's busy unwrapping Hermione's presents. "Thanks Potter, I wanted that one for a really long time." Draco replies with grin as he looks at the book.

Harry nods at him. "Thank you as well for giving me that book." He replies.

Many presents later (Beans, a wand holder and chocolate frogs), they reach the bottom of the pile, this one comes from the Weasley brothers.

Hermione holds it near her ear. "I don't hear anything ticking…" she says after a while, Harry and Ron nod and say it's safe to be opened.

Slowly, Hermione unwraps it and her head turns beet red, she wants to hide it under the bed, but Harry had already taken it from her, he and Ron take a good look at it and start to laugh so hard, they nearly fall off the bed.

Draco steals the present back from Harry's hands and turns as red as Hermione, he's looking at a pink condom in the form of a pig, the title of the package says: 'Magical Nights'.

He throws the package under the bed, without giving it a second thought and grins sheepishly. 'Thoughtful of them…" he murmurs, so softly that they can hardly hear them, then he gets up, puts on his pants and walks downstairs, the others follow him, still grinning.

When they enter the kitchen, everyone else is already there. "Merry Christmas!" they hear from everywhere around the table and everyone is happily discussing their Christmas presents. Misses Weasley is wearing the skirt that Draco bought her, and over that, she wears Hermione's talking apron.

Misses Weasley has tears in her eyes as she walks up to Draco. "Thank you so much, Draco, how did you know I wanted this skirt so badly?" she asks and gives him a big hug.

Draco stutters as he answers: "Ron… he told me what you all would like to have…" Misses Weasley releases him again and seems to radiate happiness.

Hermione finally walks up to the present she got from Draco and unwraps it, immediately, she starts screaming and jumping and she jumps in Draco's arms. Draco wonders how many times you can say 'Thank you' without tripping over your tongue.

Then finally, he turns to misses Weasley and says: "Thank you so much for the sweater, I like it very much." Misses Weasley gives him a grateful smile and gestures at the table so they an start breakfast.

After breakfast, the Weasley's go outside for some Quidditch in the snow.

Draco, Fred and George take one side of the field, Ron, Hermione and Harry take the other side. Ginny plays referee from the side.

They play for quite some time, but no matter how much Draco tried, it didn't seem like he'd ever be able to score a point. Maybe that was because his team mates, Fred and George, kept making pig-like sounds whenever he flew by on the rickety old broom that once belonged to Charlie, but it sure doesn't improve his mood.

Finally, he seems to think it's been enough, he lands, throws away the broom and stamps back up to the house, followed suit by Hermione who tries to calm him down.

"Maybe we've crossed the line a little this time. Fred says softly. "He did really try hard with those presents…" George answers while nodding. They decide that they should apologize to him.

Hermione catches up on Draco as he sits on a snowy bench next to the entrance of the house. Hermione puts her arms around him and doesn't say anything.

"I like this place a lot better than expected…" Draco suddenly says. "Fred and George… I'll just have to take them for granted, I already knew they only agreed so that they could bully me around."

Hermione chuckles. "That's them being them, as you know." She says in a sweet voice and she strokes Draco's hair softly. Draco nods and grins as well.

Fred and George come walking up to them and Hermione gives them a fierce, warning look.

"We're here to apologize." George says, lifting his hands in the air as a peace treaty.

Draco shakes his head. "You don't have to, I deserve what you did." He says in a calm voice.

Fred and George shake their heads identically. "No mate, you made our whole family happy, and us as well, 1000 ways for jokes and laughs, we wanted that book for quite some time already." He says with a wink. "Sorry about the joke with your present, we'll send you something better once the stores are open again."

Once Draco has finally found a way to convince them that it isn't needed and that the gift might eventually turn out handy in some way, it's time for Christmas dinner.

This turns out to be so pleasant and so full of tasty food, that Draco wishes he can spend Christmas at the Weasleys every year, for the presents, the companionship, the nice warm sweater and the delicious food.

After dinner, he and Hermione go outside again, it's dark and the sky is clear, so they can see the moon and the stars and everything else around them seems to be as quiet as it gets.

"Thank you…" Draco says. "For the best Christmas ever."


	14. The Letter

Chapter 14 – The Letter

Christmas seems ages ago already. The lessons at Hogwarts have started again and the NEWT exams draw ever nearer. Draco and Hermione hardly have time to see each other anymore because Hermione is busy studying, she doesn't want to see even one Exceed Expectations on her diploma once she's graduated.

So the time they're allotted gets shortened a lot and when they do see each other, it's in the library, where they have whispered conversations during their studying.

Finally the exams begin and on the evening before, Hermione is so nervous that she can't seem to eat a single bite and keeps knocking over her glasses of pumpkin juice, until Ron threatens to glue it to the table with a Permanent Sticking Charm so that she'll stop smearing his robes.

Every time she sees Draco, she grabs on to him. "Quick, tell me, what was the answer to question…" and that's how it went the whole evening, Draco stayed remarkably calm, although he sometimes panicked because he didn't know the answer.

That night, Hermione doesn't sleep, she's in complete panic because of the upcoming exams and keeps grabbing her book to look up a fact or a date. She feels just like she did the night before the OWL exams.

Draco, on the other hand, has a perfect night of sleep, though his dreams show a lot of books which open themselves and answers that try to push their way into his mind, but all the answers seem wrong. A Boggart doesn't laugh when a spell is fired at it and the Grim doesn't stand for life and imagination.

He rolls and rolls in his bed, completely wrapped in his blanket. The next morning, when he wants to get up, he naturally finds himself square on the floor with his face down.

Swearing loudly, he gets up, only to swear even harder when he notices the time.

He's already ten minutes late for his first exam, Charms, he quickly gets dressed, does a quick attempt to straighten his hair and runs down the stairs. In the Great Hall, everyone's already working on his or her exam, when he enters, everyone looks at him, Hermione with a look of relief and stress, Ron and Harry with a huge grin on their faces because the back of his hair is still a complete mess.

An aged looking wizard leads him to his seat and hands him his exam.

He gives the questions a sleeping look, not understanding any of them and he looks at his side, where Hermione is feverishly writing line after like down on her parchment.

He grins, she can be so completely into studying. After a while, he's still staring at her, until his vision suddenly gets blocked by a pair of legs. He wants to give the person an angry sneer, but to his shock, it turns out to be professor McGonagall. "Malfoy, if you don't start your exam right away, I will have you removed from the Great Hall." She sneers and angrily walks away.

Draco turns around and stares at the questions again. He quickly starts scribbling down some answers while someone else, from his house as a matter of fact, is laughing at him.

It seems only a few minutes before the exam is over, it seems like he's spent some more time looking at Hermione than he initially expected, he had only twenty minutes left for the exam. He had only finished half of it and fearfully looks at the witch who had told them to lay down their quills. He quickly tries to scribble down another answer, but at that exact moment the packages of parchment roll up and fly to professor Flitwick, who sways under the enormous load, but manages to keep upright this time. In the previous exam he had to be lifted back on his feet by two students because he got stowed under the enormous load of parchment.

Without any confidence, he leaves the Great Hall, knowing he has failed this exam, it is impossible to even think he cleared it.

Halfway down the hall, he gets hunted down by Hermione, who has a book in front of her nose, but still seems to know the way through the halls perfectly without watching.

"Where were you this morning?" she asks.

Draco grins and tells her he has overslept, because he couldn't stop dreaming about the exams.

Hermione chuckles and admits she hasn't slept the whole night.

Together they walk outside and find a secluded place between some bushes to look through the exam. Draco starts to feel more sick by the minute as he finds out how much he's missed, but he keeps asking the questions to Hermione, who keeps answering with things like 'I'm sure I got that question right…' or 'oh, I know for sure I messed that one up, I wrote this and that down, but I forgot that piece!'

Somewhere around the fifteenth question, he doesn't get an answer and he looks down, Hermione has fallen asleep against his chest. He grins and puts the exam questions away. With a loving kiss on her forehead, he places his head on top of hers and falls asleep as well, stimulated by the warm sun and the sound of the lake.

He wakes up by a nudge in his side, Ron stands before him, with Harry at his side.

"Time for the practical exam in twenty minutes, if you want to pass the exam, I'd better hurry if I were you." He grins, then he wakes Hermione, who immediately jumps up and bumps into Ron's nose.

"Come on, we can't be late!" she yells with terror in her voice and she drags a half sleepy Draco along with her. Harry and Ron follow suit, Ron with a heavily bleeding nose.

After a little while, they stand in front of the big oak doors, leading towards the Great Hall again, where they enter in groups of five.

Hermione keeps jumping up and down as if she needs to pee badly. When her name finally gets called out, she sags through her legs in complete fear and Draco needs to catch her, while shaking on her legs, she walks inside and once she's reached the door, she looks back over her shoulder, Draco grins and lifts his thumb.

Carrying a watery smile, she walks inside.

"I believe she's a tiny bit nervous…" he jokes as the door closes behind her.

Ron and Harry nod and laugh.

Hermione needn't had worried, the examiners were so impressed by her performance that they still stared at her with open mouth when she finally left the Great Hall again, relieved that this exam went so good, but already deeply worried about her next exam.

"We should assign that girl to be Minister for Magic." Whispers one.

"Well, she would most definitely do better than that oaf we're currently seeing as our minister." The other replies.

Draco's practical exam went a lot less flawless, he confused several spells, accidentally changed his examiner into a toad instead of making him float and blew up his eggshell with so much force that his hair is now even more upright than it was before.

At the end of the exam, he is so completely panicked that he threw his wand through the Hall with an angry scream, hitting Pansy Parkinson square on the back of her head.

With his hands covering his head, he runs out of the Great Hall, followed by curses and charms from Pansy's side, who clearly saw this as an attempt to assassinate her.

Harry and Ron follow him while laughing loudly and give him his wand back.

Hermione can't seem to laugh when she finds out he has ruined his exam and looks at Draco as if the end of the world draws very near. "Better luck tomorrow." She says with a compassionate voice.

During dinner, Draco eats everything he can reach, he sits with Hermione, Harry and Ron at the Gryffindor table and keeps apologizing, he had skipped breakfast as well as lunch because he overslept and he's perfectly starving.

After dinner, Hermione and Draco decide it's time to go to the library again, determined to know all the answers to the upcoming exam by heart. The subject is Potions and both Hermione and Draco are definitely not looking forward to it.

Draco is positively alarmingly bad at Potions and Hermione is as nervous as always.

It's after midnight when they finally fall back to their separate common rooms, without their rights as Prefects, they could most likely have counted on a rather high punishment.

Once they've reached the Slytherin dungeons, which is less far than the Gryffindor tower, they say goodbye to each other, a few last words like 'What are the ingredients of a Pollyjuice Potions and what are the effects?' and a long kiss which they both don't wish to end, they say goodbye.

Hermione's head is filled with questions and answers once she's in her bed. She loves it, she could live on it.

Thinking about the upcoming exam, she falls asleep, dreaming about brewing the perfect draft.

This night it is Draco that doesn't sleep. Not because he spent the whole night learning, but because he keeps messing up recipes in his mind. He puts his head under his pillow and tries desperately to get them out of his head so that he won't mess up his exam tomorrow by falling asleep during the test.

The next day starts way too early for him, it feels like he's only just fallen asleep when he hears students yelling at each other to wake up.

Still sleepy, he gets out of bed and tries to put on his robes backwards for a few moments. When he has finally succeeded in putting it on the right way, and putting all his hair straight on his head this time, he walks out of the common room where, to his utter surprise, Hermione, Harry and Ron are waiting for him.

"I didn't want you to oversleep again." Hermione admits while blushing a little.

Draco smiles gratefully at her, soon they would know that showing up late for their exam would be the least of their problems.

They eat their breakfast at the Gryffindor house table, Draco is feeding Hermione because she'd rather study than eat her breakfast. While quickly looking over her notes on how different sorts of potions get brewed, Draco is feeding her small pieces of toast.

They leave the Great Hall once Hermione has finally eaten a considerable amount and they wait to be let in once more.

Just at the moment the doors to the Great Hall open again, an owl flies in, Draco immediately recognizes it as the owl from their family.

With a confused frown, he detaches the letter from it's paw, it looks official and that makes him worry quite a bit.

At the moment the letter is detached, the owl flies off again, apparently, his parents don't expect an answer.

He moves away from the other students a little and opens the letter.

With every word he reads, his face turns whiter, and once he has finished the letter, he stares at Hermione with open mouth while he sags to the floor, unable to hold back his tears.


	15. Tears

Chapter 15 – Tears

The exams for Potions go faster than he could've noticed, Draco had nearly done anything about his potion when the end signal sounded.

It didn't matter to him anymore. Everything was destroyed by that one letter his father had sent to him.

Hermione had asked him what's going on, but Draco had said it'd have to wait until after the exam.

Now the exam is over and he can't back out anymore. Hermione is already waiting for him by the doors of the Great Hall. Draco would much rather have walked right passed her, nothing in the world could make this news more bearable, nothing in the world can make this right.

Together, they go outside, Harry and Ron were wise enough not to join them, something Draco could appreciate a lot, he doesn't know if he can speak the words that are needed, especially not with those two around.

They sit down at their usual spot and Draco draws a deep breath, so he won't start crying.

Hermione lies down in his arms, but that only makes him feel worse.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the words won't come out, instead of that, tears roll over his cheeks and he takes the letter out of the pocket of his robes. He hands it to Hermione with a begging, sad glare, as if he's hoping Hermione can say that the letter speaks untrue.

Hermione takes the letter and starts reading.

'Draco,

You have deeply disappointed us, my son, I thought of you as a real Malfoy, but apparently I was mistaken.

How dare you humiliate us in this way? How dare you starting a relationship with a Mudblood? You make a disgrace out of our name by mixing your blood with that of the Granger girl, I forbid you to let it continue.

Happily, I found a solution. After long conversations with the Parkinson family we have come to the conclusion that, after you've finished your education, you will get married to Pansy Parkinson.

She is a pureblood wizard, she will be good for you, a perfect woman.

She will be able to give you more than that Mudblood Granger could ever have done.

Be wise and take this advice to heart. I won't allow more treachery.

If I notice you're still having contact with that Granger at the end of the school year, the consequences will be severe.

Much love,

Your father, Lucius Malfoy.

Hermione can't believe what's in the letter. "This can't be real… it can't be…" she stammers, after all they've been through together, all the good and bad moments, and this is the end? She just has to give him up? She shakes her hand, she can't, she really doesn't want to believe it.

With a scream of pure desperation, she falls into Draco's arms again and starts crying, her whole body shakes under the force of it.

"Hermione…" Draco manages to say, his voice choking in his throat, he swallows the lump in his throat and keeps her close to him.

"I have to do as he says… he's a Death eater you now… I'm afraid that… if I don't do it… you are unsure of your life, I would never forgive myself if anything would happen to you, I love you, that's why I have to leave you now. I'd rather live in sadness with that woman of Parkinson, than in a life where I know I'll never accidentally walk in to you anymore."

Hermione shakes her head wildly, she doesn't want to hear it. She knows it's true, she knows what Draco's father is capable of, but she can't handle it. She doesn't want to be without him.

"I love you Draco." She whispers. She looks at him with watery eyes and Draco is pretty sure the same pain can be read in his eyes.

"And I love you…" he whispers back. "Please, don't ever forget that."

He kisses her, long and passionate, as if the only thing that matters at the moment is the love between them, anything else van wait, everything else will have to wait.

When Draco finally breaks out of the embrace, he stands up and walks away without looking back, if he'd look back now, he'll go back. He can't go back, it's impossible to stay with her. He knew that from the beginning, but he was naïve enough to think that it would all somehow work out, somehow, everything could've worked out fine.

He walks up to the Slytherin common room and quickly disappears into his room. He doesn't want to see anyone, nor hear or feel them, only the memory to Hermione will keep him safe.

Hermione stands up and slowly walks back to the Gryffindor common room. She'll have to explain to Harry and Ron what's happened. Then she suddenly notices she's still carrying the letter in her hands. If she'd just give that to them, she won't have to say anything, the letter itself will say everything for her.

Too clearly, too painful, she would like to scream out loud in pain, her heart feels like it's been ripped to pieces and there's nothing she can do about it.

Back in the common room, Harry and Ron are already waiting for herm they don't ask anything, they know there's got to be something terribly wrong for Draco to cry in public. They also notice that Hermione's been crying. Without a further explanation, she doesn't think she dares to speak the words out loud, she pushes the letter in Harry's hand.

Harry and Ron read it together, their concern changes into outright disbelief and after that to compassion. They look at Hermione as if they'd never expected it.

"I'm really sorry for you…" Ron says and for the first time it seems as if every word he has spoken is the truth. He takes Hermione in his arms and lets her cry.

The other students in the common room look a little amazed, but most of them seem to understand what's going on.

The Forbidden Love has come to an end.

The NEWT exams come and go, Hermione, as well as Draco, don't seem to have put much thought into it anymore. The students are concerned, they don't have a clue what's going on and every time they ask, they don't get a clear answer.

Once the final exam is finished and the school year is nearing it's closure, it's time for the end of term feast, as a celebration to the end of the year.

Hermione and Draco don't feel like celebrating, what's there to celebrate? They're not looking forward to the end of the year, seeing they'll never be able to lay eyes on each other afterwards.

Every time Hermione sees Draco walking down the hall, Pansy accompanies him, she's sticking to him like a Bowtruckle to it's favourite tree and keeps glaring in her direction as if daring her to come near. She doesn't, she wouldn't be able to talk to Draco again, it'd hurt too much.

Meanwhile, Harry and Ron have given up on trying to think of a subject for speech with Hermione, because she answers every sentence with 'hhm' or 'uhu' and although the guys can understand this, it's starting to become a little annoying.

During the end of term feast, the ambience is radiating happiness in the Great Hall, everyone's happy that the exams are over and they can go home, to look for work and never worry about homework again.

Harry and Ron try to convince Hermione of this, finding a job and never having to make homework again is a good thing, she should be glad that she's graduated. But this turns out to be too much for her and she leaves the Great Hall, completely in tears.

Harry looks over his shoulder to see Draco, Draco's head is turned towards the door through which Hermione's just left. His face shows the same tormented look that Hermione's been carrying for days.

They decide to end the feast earlier and go back to the common room, where they find Hermione, in her hands she holds the feather she has gotten from Draco last Christmas.

Beside her is her trunk, completely packed and ready to be taken once they leave.

After the feast it's time for the students to go home, she doesn't know if she should be happy about it or not, but she also knows she can't take it to stay in the castle either.

Every hall, every class lets her think of the things she has done with Draco, all the nice moments they've shared, conversations, hugs, kisses, their first time, his smile, his voice, his scent. All these things are still vivid in her mind.

Once they're at Hogmead's station and are loading their trunks into the train, Draco suddenly comes walking up to Hermione, it seems like he's been able to lose Pansy for a moment, because she's nowhere in sight.

Hermione shakes her head and wants to walk away, she doesn't want to talk to him, she won't be able to handle it, but Draco stops her by grabbing her arm, he turns her around and kisses her, one last time, he says to himself. "My heart will always belong to you." He whispers, his voice thick with emotion.

Hermione once more bursts into tears and falls into his arms. "Please don't leave me… please!" she begs, she doesn't want to let him go.

Draco shakes his head and frees himself from her embrace. "I'll go, but I'll always be with you. In my head and my heart, you'll always be the only one for me." He says, a single tear rolls down his cheek and his lip shakes with the force of restraining himself.

Then he turns around and runs away, leaving Hermione in tears.

Harry and Ron, who had been standing beside Hermione, scrape their throats, their eyes look strangely wet.

"Lets find ourselves a seat." They silently suggest and they take Hermione inside, her legs are shaking too much to be able to walk on her own.

The way home seems to take forever, Hermione can't wait to get off the train, to leave and never look back. She doesn't care about anything anymore, she doesn't want anything to do with Hogwarts or the Wizarding World anymore. She cries the whole time and Harry and Ron leave her be, they don't know what they can do to make her feel better.

Finally they arrive in London, platform 9 ¾ is filled with people, happy people who are welcoming their sons and daughters back.

Hermione doesn't look at them, she grabs her suitcase and without looking back even once, she leaves the train.

The Weasley family comes walking up to them and hug Hermione, they are the only family that knows what has happened.

Mister Weasley looks up and his eyes become big. Everyone turns around to see Draco coming up to them, his eyes have never looked more alive, they seem to be on fire, showing a strange mix of emotions. "Hermione…" he says once he stands in front of her, his trunk lies somewhere forgotten on the ground. "Go with me…" he begs and he takes her hand.

"Go with me, I can't live without you, we'll run, until we can be together, I don't want to lose you, I can protect you if it's needed. Lets go, just you and me together."

He takes hold of Hermione and holds her close, as if he's trying to say that no one will ever be allowed to take her away from him anymore.

Hermione wants to say it's impossible, but at that moment mister Weasley hisses: "Go now, Lucius is coming, we'll come up with a story."

Hermione looks at him, her eyes speak of uncertainty, but then she nods, she takes Draco's hand and runs through the barrier, off the platform, through the steady stream of Muggles who give them a strange look, but they don't care, they just keep running, through the streets of London, not knowing where to go or how long they'll have to run, but as long as they're together, nothing and no one on the world will ever be able to harm them.

The end.


End file.
